My Rooster List

            I have a rooster list. I flew to a special niece’s house to stay for a week. As I took my suitcase into the bedroom she explained. “My neighbor has roosters.” I looked at her and knew there was more. “They have lots of roosters”

            That night or should I say early morning at 4:15 I understood her words. I would wake up with the chickens. I pack a pair of earplugs when I travel and that helped.

            They say you can get used to anything. My niece lived at the end of a dead end street that was still part of the county. When I took a walk down her street past expensive, lovely homes and then back to her home I stepped around beautiful, proud roosters. I was the intruder. They were also strutting through all the neighbors' yards. Was the whole neighborhood so accustomed to the roosters that they accepted dozens of them as normal?

            The next morning when I woke up with the early birds I decided to spend time with the Lord. I wondered what I was accepting in my life that God might think was strange. So I dared to pray about it. Slowly, I realized there were things in my home and life that I accepted because I gradually became familiar with them. At the beginning I wasn’t comfortable with them. 
             I wrote down a list. I called it my Rooster List and took it home to work on changes. No, I won’t share my list with you. You’ll have to ask the Holy Spirit for your own list.

Scripture: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" Matthew 7:3 (NIV)

GHS Showed me the way Home

           I was very late. “MapQuest took me to a factory instead of your church,” I informed the greeter at a church in another state. They were already aware of the problem, but it was too late to help those who were lost.

Before my next trip I put a GPS in my car. I determined I would not trust MapQuest again. My GPS did fine. It took me right to a destination in Akron, Ohio with only one “recalculate” when I stopped to eat. Great! I thought. This is good.

            But later that night on the way home I knew something was very wrong.  I was in a very remote country area, and it was black dark. Even the moon didn’t give any light. I was told to turn left, right, right and right.  Suddenly I realized I was back where I first turned left. Worse yet I needed to get gas soon.

            “Maybe a car will come by and I can ask them.” I thought.

            Fear began to talk to me. “ You don’t know who’s in the car.”

            I prayed for wisdom and direction. I reminded myself that the Holy Spirit was there to lead me home. A peace began to quiet the voice of fear. Slowly, but surely I began to work my way back to a main road. At each intersection I asked for wisdom to choose the right road.

            MapQuest didn’t work. GPS didn’t work. But directions from God’s Holy Spirit did. He was there in the car with me. I used a heavenly GHS system that knew the way home.

Verse: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27 (NIV)

Prayer: Thank you Father that no matter how dark and lost it seems, You know the way home.

SALTY

       A Christian explained the gospel to another person while I listened from a distance. 

It caused me to think about a mug of hot chocolate. I was eight and sledding with neighbor kids. It was below zero so their mother bribed us to come in and drink hot chocolate. Eight kids set around a huge table to watch a kettle of hot chocolate as we licked our lips. I saw her dump two cups of sugar in from the canister on her kitchen counter. I knew it was going to be good! She brought the kettle to the table to ladle the steamy chocolate into our mugs.

      Since I was company I was served the first treat. I took a gulp and almost gagged. 

It was awful. I forced myself to swallow. Her children weren’t so polite. They spit it out.

She had dipped into the salt instead of the sugar canister.

      We are salt to the world. This Christian was sincere. But he took off the lid and 

dumped the whole saltshaker on the person. I could see the interest in the person’s eyes turn to 

dismay and finally bitterness as they tried to follow. The Christian didn’t know how to concisely present the gospel, and ask them to pray without going on and on. Too much salt! The result was a sweet moment turned into a bitter event. They were polite like I was with the salty chocolate, but quickly left so they could spit it out.

Verse: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.” Col.4:6 (NIV)