"Hand and Foot!" - Encore!

 "And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin, Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go." (John 1144 KJV)

  "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here I am. Send me!"" (Isaiah 6:8 NIV)

 You probably haven't seen me do that very often, quote anything from the NIV; but I was using the Bible Hub for my reference, and NIV is right above the NLT. Every time I would start typing the NLT version, I would find myself ending up doing the NIV version instead; so, I finally gave in and just went with the NIV one.

 That is really a thing, in case you might not have understood where that came from. Our guest speaker at the men's breakfast yesterday was sharing his testimony, as it goes, that was the majority of the message, and how it is that God speaks to us do things, and we need to listen and do them when He says to do them, whether or not we want: if He says to go do it now, then we need to do it now! 

 Bruce started out his message explaining his divorce, and how things turned terribly bad against him; so much so, that he had gotten up one night out of his sleep, grabbed his gun, and went out into the yard to kill himself. At 2:30 in the morning, as he was about to pull the trigger the phone rang, he didn't answer, but when it rang again. He thought one of his kids might be calling, so he went in and answered it.

 The call happened to be from a girl that he went to school with, and she asked, "What are you doing, Bruce?" He answered, "I was asleep! Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?" She asked again, "What are you doing, Bruce?" He answered, "I already told you? Why are you still asking me?" Then she said, "Are you trying to kill yourself? Because God woke me up, and told me I needed to call you, right now!" 

 Let me tell you, my heart stopped, and I began to weep! That is some very serious stuff, because I have been on the calling side of that before, but I did not call when I should have. I made a note to self, to call that person in the morning. When morning came, I made the call, left a message, and never heard back! Not quite sure what might have happened, because it was so long ago, it wasn't something I followed up on, and don't even remember whole situation. All I can remember is I didn't get out of bed when I felt God prompting me to go!

 Bruce also shared about the time his nephew tried to commit suicide and was at Mercy on a Suicide Watch. God told Bruce to go and visit his nephew, but Bruse was overwhelmed with things to do, and said he would do it later. However, he somehow found himself driving towards Mercy anyways, and had ended up on the west side of Placer by the Dog Park; so, he decided to just go visit him right then.

 As he turned down the back street towards the hospital, he spotted a man walking towards him, away from the hospital, with IV tubes in his arms and wearing a gown. It was his nephew! Yes, it really is a thing! When you are trusted to be God's servant, and you do not listen, God will put in a place that will cause you to do what He says! Just ask Jonah, when you see him!

 After the message, we were asked to do a ten-minute table discussion. Me, being the weirdo that I am, needed to share about something I knew, that must people I have told it to, did not know. It was about, then candidate Trump and when he visited Governor Mike Pence, to try to get his endorsement. Mike told him that he could not endorse him. because he was endorsing Ted Cruz. 

 So, as Donald Trump was leaving his office, Mike stopped him and asked, "Will you pray with me?" Donald replied, "You want me to pray with you? No one has done that before!" Well, most of you might know what happened after that! Mike was prompted to ask him to pray with him, he responded right away, and God moved! 

 Yes, Jesus performed a great miracle, beyond anything else, (with the possible exception saving me,) but Lazarus still needed to come out of that tomb, even then, because he was bound, Jesus made it happen anyway. And then, because they could and should have anyway, Jesus instructed those around Lazarus to unbound him and let him go. 

 Jesus could have also caused all of those bandages to just fall to the ground; but He had people standing there, that could take care of the things that people can do. Note to self: If a fail to do what it is that God instructs me to do, I will most likely not be allowed to enjoy the things I want to do...

"And the LORD God arranged for a leafy plant to grow there, and soon it spread its broad leaves over Jonah's head, shading him from the sun. This eased his discomfort, and Jonah was very grateful for the plant. But God also arranged for a worm! The next morning at dawn the worm ate though the stem of the plant so that it withered away. And as the sun grew hot, God arranged for a scorching east wind to blow on Jonah. The sun beat down on his head until he grew faint and wished to die. "Death is certainly better than living like this!" he exclaimed. Then God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?" "Yes," Jonah retorted, "even angry enough to die!" Then the LORD said, "You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. It came quickly and died quickly. But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn't I feel sorry for such a great city?"" (Jonah 4:6-11 NLT)