Robert and I watch a lot of reality/educational TV – the good kind!  We love cooking shows & competitions, Discovery Channel stuff, etc. One of our favorites is American Pickers, which covers the journey of two men who “pick” for a living, reclaiming and buying junky, rusted stuff for new purposes.  In that show, they oftentimes wind up in remote places all across the USA, and they find a lot of people living “off the grid”..i.e. isolated and away from regular life.  They have basically “checked out” of society, and prefer to be self-sustaining and undisturbed…..at all costs.  They don’t ask anything of anyone but they also don’t give.  They live totally for themselves, holding on to what they have until one day they die. They have houses loaded with “stuff” and memories, but that’s all they have.  Their legacy is mostly a pile of “junk”, some special items, and the burden that they put on their families who inherit it to get rid of all of it.

Unfortunately, as our world gets a little crazier, a little meaner, and a little more dangerous each day, there are Christians who have chosen this lifestyle for their SPIRITUAL lives.  Some are very out and direct with it – they are the “doomsday preppers”, or those who try to interpret every bad event/disaster through any Bible verse they can make fit.  Many are on the internet speaking their “prophecies”.  And while all may not be true believers in Jesus Christ, some are.

However, the truly “off grid” Christians are not much different from anyone else.  They have simply vanished from spiritual life altogether.  No longer very active in churches, no longer keeping up with what’s really going on in the world spiritually, no longer praying for God’s will to be done in our world today, and keeping themselves “out of danger” by not making waves, or speaking out about loss of spiritual liberties, or taking a stand for Jesus in any effective way.  They are just huddled up, so to speak, with their families and a few friends, struggling to survive until they die and go to heaven where they won’t have to worry about anything anymore.  They are definite believers, born again and truly saved, but they have given up hope, and do not believe anymore in the power they have through the Lord to live a victorious life, and make a difference in the lives of others, or this world.  THEIR legacy is equally depressing, leaving behind the “what could have beens” and burdening their families with no rich legacy of how to live a life that counts.

Which leads to this point – every time I watch a show like that, God uses it to prompt me to investigate my OWN life and mentality.  Am I just living to get through this terrible world any way I can, clinging to my salvation and hoping for Jesus to come sooner than later??  Or am I living to honor Him, involved in my world, involved in His work, and making those moments, days, and weeks mean something?  It’s a very good question – and I hope that I will always take those opportunities to grow, and move out more, and be more like my Jesus in my world.

I usually go into town on Sunday mornings before church to get breakfast, and today was no exception..but it was a great moment for God to show me something!  

We have double drive thru lines at our McDonalds, and they feed into a single paying line.  Usually people are all in line at the first one and very few people slip into the 2nd…they wait till the last minute to choose to go to that one.  I however always whip around to the 2nd, bypassing the longer line.  This morning as I whipped around I came face to face with a “caution!  Wet floor” double sided sign and couldn’t pull up to the speaker.  Obviously there are no wet floors outside so I was confused..and almost got out to move it and pull up.  But then I thought there must be a reason for the sign so I backed up and maneuvered into the first line.

When I got to the window, I asked the girl what was wrong with the 2nd lane..and she was astonished!  She told me she thought it was really weird that she had seen all the cars staying in just the one lane and wondered why, but didn’t ask anyone.  In turn, no one had told her about it either.  Truth was, there was nothing wrong!  As I left I saw someone going outside to remove the sign!

So what did God say to me about this? Just this…the blind acceptance of the crowd to assume the 2nd lane was broken was amazing!  No one questioned it, and everyone but me had followed along with the others.  And no one asked the ones “in charge” (the employees) if it was true!

That is SO true of our society today.  So many people (including Christians) walk along in acceptance of every “rule” they see or hear, never bothering to ask whether it’s right or wrong..and never questioning its source.  The girl at the window and I agreed that the sign was probably put there as a practical joke to see how people reacted, and that just makes it that much worse!  

God has implicitly told us, admonished us and warned us that there is One Way, and One Author of the rules for life…and yet sometimes we just trudge along and don’t look up to check things out!

That really convicted me!  And as I go to worship later this am, I will be repenting for the times that has described me..and I will be asking God to make me more and more vigilant in my life to keep me from being just “one of the crowd”!

 This is what it looks like here when there is a 90% chance of rain and a 40% chance of severe weather!!  This was Thursday at 6:00 pm, the exact time all of that was supposed to happen.  Mom and I even changed our eating out for supper plans to eating out for lunch plans because Robert left town that morning and he didn’t want us to get caught out in the storm!  This happens a lot here, and everywhere, but this time God got my attention about one particular thing..

Our weather people have a lot of tools at their disposal.  They have some of the most sophisticated equipment we have ever had..stuff that weathermen in years past would have killed for.  But they are then still SO wrong so many times!!  And why might this be?  Because the weather is only in the control of the One who created it, and all the technology in the world can’t always predict it, understand it, or deal with it.

And yet!!  We as God’s children are so like our weathermen.  We have a lot more “tools” than our forefathers, and yet we get it so wrong, so often.  We sometimes search all our available resources, people, and chuches seeking an answer..but we neglect the One person Who knows it all!  And the One who is therefore the only true Guider of our lives that will never let us down.

Now of course we will never be perfect in this life.  But unlike our weathermen, we can grow and become people who experience being right more and more often, because we are getting our information and guidance from the One.

So next time the forecast is totally wrong and you are tempted to be frustrated at their failure, let it remind you to check your OWN source!