Yes, that quote is from the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Why am I referencing it? Well, for the last two weeks I have been working many hours a day to prepare for a major move in my life, and I have witnessed God’s mighty hand all along the way.
For instance, I rented my house in ten minutes. My fiancé found us an apartment in one hour that met all of our requirements and came in way under budget. I lost my wallet on a city street and after walking away one and half blocks I realized it. I hurried back to find it on the ground, undisturbed. As this adventure with God has begun, I have seen one miracle after another. I would hear the Holy Spirit whisper who to talk to and when. I made the right calls at the right time that expedited my needs being met, but my favorite testimony is this:
I was stacking my belongings in my storage unit. I had a ladder so I could place items all the way up to the ceiling. I climbed up the ladder with a sofa cushion and was trying to put it in a spot up high. I couldn’t reach it, so I placed one foot over on a pile of furniture, thinking it was stable. It wasn’t! I fell from about six feet up and landed, on my back, on the storage unit’s concrete floor. The fall scared me. I laid there expecting pain, blood, a broken bone, something, but there was none of that. I got up and kept working. Even the next day I had no pain from the fall.
The funny thing was, when I recounted the incident, it felt as if someone had caught me and laid me on the concrete floor. If that’s true then I think in heaven the conversation went something like this:
“Excuse me God, but it’s almost that time on earth when Mark is about to make that bone head move in the storage unit,” said Joseph
“Yes, it is isn’t it?” replied God “Whose turn is it to go down there to help one of my children?”
“Clarence sir.”
“Joseph, call Clarence”
Now I don’t know if the angel’s name was Clarence, and I doubt my blunder got him his wings. But I do know this, living for God, and allowing him to guide, direct and be active in our lives really does make for a wonderful life. I wouldn’t want to live life any other way. If you have not accepted God’s gift, Jesus, his son to forgive you of your sins then do it. Begin right now experiencing what I have learned, and lived for a long time. And thanks to God I have life and have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)
Copyright © 2019 Mark Brady, All rights reserved
You weren’t made to stare at your phone.
In my last blog, I mentioned being in the Philippines. On that trip, one thing that really caught me off guard, was how hard it was to try to blend in. For instances, when in a grocery store I was looking for chili to put on hot dogs. They took me to the hot sauce isle. Then trying to speak their language was a disaster most of the time. They have a phrase there when you are trying to speak a foreign language, and doing a poor job of it, your nose bleeds. My bled a lot! The most difficult part was trying to accept how they do things there. At times, it felt like a part of me was dying. To quote Seinfeld, “If the two worlds collide, the George you know, will no longer exist!”
Traveling to new places can be exciting, exhilarating, and exuberant. It can also be daunting, especially when your phone doesn’t work. One of my mother’s friends said, before my trip to the Philippines, that he couldn’t even find the airport in his home town, much less one 7000 miles away. Trust me, there were many times when I was praying, a lot. Especially when I arrived and couldn’t find my host family. Turned out, United had started using a different terminal in Manilla 3 days before my arrival.
In Exodus 14:14-18 it says when the people heard they were scared. The Philistines writhed and trembled; Yes, even the head men in Edom were shaken, and the big bosses in Moab. Everybody in Canaan panicked and fell faint. Dread and terror sent them reeling.
I was going through my father’s papers the other day. I had to keep some of them, but most of them were old records about his life that were no longer of value, so I shredded them. While going through that process I thought about a man’s life, and the summation of it all. Is the end result a bag of shredded documents? I hope not.
A friend once invited me to Thanksgiving. When I accepted her invitation she replied, “Great! At least now we’ll have a turkey!”
Life isn’t scripted, so when its not going as you want it to, know it’s a great time to practice what you believe about God.
“Beware lest you forget God’s purpose for your life” – Oswald Chambers
brady, mark a. 