Going on a God Hunt – Part 32

Well, our blog posts on the spiritual discipline of Going on a God Hunt have come to an end. Starting on Monday, I will begin a new series of blog posts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays on key truths from the Book of Revelation. But, I’ll write more about that on Monday.

For now, just one last time, I want to review the four elements that we can use to spot God’s marvelous hand on our daily lives:

  • Any obvious answer to prayer.
  • Any unexpected evidence of God’s care.
  • Any help to do God’s work in the world.
  • Any evidence of unusual linkage and timing.

Making a written record of your own God Hunt “Sightings” will help you make this discipline an important part of your spiritual formation. You will be able to look back at those times when you saw God at work. Over time, you will come to recognize how very much He loves you, as you take note of His care.

To help you see how this all works, I want to share another blog post from my wife, Karen. This one is entitled “From My Youth You Have Taught Me”:

At the border, on our way to meet some 17 people at the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, we stopped at the customs booth between the U.S. and Canada.

“Oh, oh,” I said to David. “We’ve picked the wrong line.” The car ahead of us was delayed for an unusually long time.

“Nationality?” questioned the Canadian customs official as I eased the car to the window. “We’re all U.S. citizens.” I could tell this was a man determined to be official; all my attempts at charm would be lost on him. “Destination?” For 30 years we had answered “the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford,” and usually, that was enough to ensure a minimal border pause.

“Whose child is in the back seat?” he demanded. “Our grandson,” I replied, thinking this man certainly could not refuse the charms of Landis Mains, a handsome 9-year-old. The next question, however, threw me. “Do you have a birth certificate?” For years we have been crossing this border with our own children, of all ages and sizes, and never needed to prove their parentage or nationality! I was dumbfounded.

Visions of being stalled endlessly flashed in my brain; then the scenario of trying to reach my son and daughter-in-law three time-zones away, seeing if they could find the original certificate, then hurry to a Kinko’s or drugstore and fax it to some hostile office along the border. A quick mortifying picture flashed in my brain, of 18 people arriving in Stratford, wondering where their hosts, David and Karen Mains, could possibly be.

Suddenly, a little voice spoke up from the back seat. “A birth certificate? I have a birth certificate.” This couldn’t possibly be true. Did Landis actually mean a birth certificate?

“Landis,” said his grandfather. “Do you have a birth certificate? Do you know where it is?” Landis scrambled into his bag in the back of the station wagon, unzipped a pocket, and whipped out the authenticating piece of paper. Hah! I thought, knowing by now that our adversary, the border-crossing guard, would have done anything to delay our journey. Hah! We have a birth certificate! The paper was passed through the window, examined and passed back.

We were waved through on the heels of the next half-second.

Talk about God Hunt “Sightings”! There were actually three in this little story. First, Landis’ parents had the presence of mind to copy a birth certificate for their son who would be flying as an unaccompanied minor from Tucson to Chicago. (Except he didn’t need it for his air flight; he needed it for the border.) Second, Landis actually remembered that he had a birth certificate. Third, he knew exactly where it was.

Have you any children in your life? Teach them how to play the God Hunt, and then they will prove God to you.

“O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I will still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and grey hairs…” —Psalm 71:17, 18.

I spy God!

To read more of Karen’s blog posts, please click here.

I say now is the time for you to feel good about your Christian walk, for you to stand at the top of your spiritual world and look down at what’s happening. You, the long time “loser”—please remember the children’s story I’ve been sharing with you—have found something very special, something you always wanted, and now have. And you hear your heavenly Father’s voice saying “not a ‘Loser’ but a ‘Finder,’” echoing over the entire town!

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Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.

We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.

For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

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Going on a God Hunt – Part 31

Today, I want to begin a two-day wrap-up for this series of blog posts that have tried to explore a very critical spiritual disciple that we call Going on a God Hunt. What we’re doing is learning how to today we will begin to look for evidences of God making His presence known in our everyday worlds.

Among the things I’ve shared with you in the series includes sharing from the book I Spy God—A God Hunt Book for Kids. Now, based on those readings, I ask you: “So what about it Loser? Are you going to become a Finder?” Said another way, “Will the God Hunt become a part of your daily life?

Sometimes it helps to learn how to accomplish this daily quest for God by reading what others have written about their very own God Hunt “Sightings.” My wife, Karen, writes a blog that currently features just that—a written record of some of the God Hunt “Sightings” she experiences in her daily life. Here’s one example from a blog post entitled “Cataracts and Magnifying Glasses”:

“So,” I said to the eye specialist who had just given a name to the murky glaze that had suddenly begun clouding the vision in my right eye. This hunky eye-doctor with the long ponytail had some obvious interest in football. Walls in his examining room were covered with pictures of NFL players. “So,. tell me what I need to know about cataracts.”

At that he called a nurse, who plunked me down in front of a video so I could endure 20 minutes of watching a real cataract operation, and then read a dreadful list of all the things that could go wrong if I underwent such a treatment.

Obviously, I didn’t hasten back to his office in six months as instructed, and hey, why ask an ophthalmologist to explain the nature of your eye dysfunction—isn’t that what the Internet is all about?

“Vision Connection” clearly describes what a cataract is; defines the three different types of cataract conditions and their causes; outlines the symptoms; and states directly, “Cataracts are treated with surgery.” No out for me here! This Web site goes on to explain that there are two types of surgery: phacoemulsification, and extracapsular extraction. OK. That’s fine. At least I didn’t have to watch a 20-minute video and then drive home by myself (shaken) afterward.

In the meantime, I placed a VERY LARGE magnifying glass by my computer. This is to help me to see. This is to help me see clearly.

It occurs to me that this is what the God Hunt is all about. It is a spiritual practice that enlarges our vision at identifying God’s work in our everyday lives—a VERY LARGE magnifying glass, if you will allow me to stretch the metaphor. The God Hunt helps us to see clearly.

“Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night.
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.”

By chance, is there a cataract clouding your spiritual vision? Something obscuring your sight? Have you put a magnifier in place to clarify your seeing?

I spy God!

I hope you found Karen’s report on her God Hunt “Sighting” helpful. Tomorrow, as a final blog post in this series, I will share another of her posts and also give you a link so you can read her blog whenever you wish.

——————————————–

Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.

We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.

For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

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Going on a God Hunt – Part 30

We’ve been talking about writing down your God Hunt “Sightings” each day. So, you only have two or three entries a week. That’s two or three more times than what you were aware of before you started writing down such matters. And what if it stays at only two or three a week your whole first year? Do you realize that you will still have a written account of between 104 and 156 times you believe you sensed God touching your life in a unique way? And how many people do you know who can make such a claim?

I know I’ve written this to you already, but I want to make certain that you don’t miss my point. Key to everything I’m talking about is your having a notebook where these God Hunt “Sightings” are recorded. No personal notebook to write them in and before long the spiritual exercise, as simple and as delightful as it is, will be forgotten—a casualty of other matters crowding it out.

Get a notebook, however, and begin getting used to writing in it, and there’s a good chance the exercise will become a positive habit. And three months, six months, a year from now you’ll still be doing it.

You may even come up with categories I’ve not mentioned. My four include these ones you are now quite familiar with:

  • Any obvious answer to prayer.
  • Any unexpected evidence of God’s care.
  • Any help to do God’s work in the world.
  • Any evidence of unusual linkage and timing.

These four may well fail to cover every way God shows Himself in our lives, but they represent a very good beginning.

So, have I convinced you yet to join those of us who are God Hunters for life? I Spy God—A God Hunt Book for Kids spells it out this way:

God leaves more clues in the world for finding him than just the clues of answered prayer. But it often takes a really good detective to see them.

For instance, you may not have thought to pray that there would be a Christian teacher in your public school; but if you discover your new teacher is a Christian and is pleased to have you and your Christian ideas in her class, there’s a clue that God is caring for you.Write this evidence down. If you don’t, you will forget it. That’s Step 2 of the God Hunt Strategy: Keep a Record of Your Evidence.

Your grandparents may give you money for your birthday. It’s exactly the amount you needed to buy something you really wanted. What’s more, you hadn’t told anyone what you wanted.

That’s an “I spy.” An “I spy” is any time God works in your everyday life and you feel really thankful.

Write your “I spy” down. You are keeping a record of the evidence. It is part of the God HuntStrategy.

Maybe you fell on your bicycle, and a car behind you came to a screeching stop just a few inches from your head.

That’s an “I spy!” God protected you from death or injury. You feel shaken, but grateful. Write it down.

Maybe you were playing baseball, and the ump called “STRIKE!” but you knew the ball was way outside of home plate. Ordinarily, you would have screamed and hollered and acted most un-Christian. But, for some reason, you kept your cool and felt really good about yourself—though still a little mad about the ump’s lousy call.

“I spy!” Hurrah! God is giving you the strength to overcome a lousy, loud-mouth attitude. You are becoming a good sport. Write it down. You are collecting the evidence.

Maybe you have gone fishing. Suddenly you see the world around you. It is so beautiful, more beautiful than you had ever noticed. You decide that God must have made the world. It couldn’t just have happened.

“I spy!” You have seen a clue about God in his creation. Don’t forget this moment. Write it down.

After some time of looking for “I spy,” you will become a really good spiritual detective.

Can’t make it much more clear than that.

As usual, since tomorrow is a Wednesday, I’m going to focus my blog post on giving pastors a “Preaching Tip.” However, I invite you to come back on Thursday when I’ll continue talking about going on a God Hunt.

——————————————–

Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.

We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.

For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

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Going on a God Hunt – Part 29

Once again, as another week begins, I want to continue to explore what we call Going on a God Hunt. We’re learning how to begin to look for evidences of God making His presence known in our everyday worlds. Specifically, we’re exploring evidence of God at work in our lives through unusual linkage or timing.

I’ve tried to underscore how important it is that you get into the habit of writing down these special sightings every day:

  • Any obvious answer to prayer.
  • Any unexpected evidence of God’s care.
  • Any help to do God’s work in the world.
  • Any evidence of unusual linkage and timing.

Making a written record of these God Hunt “Sightings” needs to be a part of your everyday routine.

I’m still reading from Karen’s book The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. I found this most interesting and certainly worthwhile sharing with you.

In an experimental program, three hundred recruits from a city’s welfare and unemployment rolls were taught journal-keeping skills as part of their on-the-job training as nurses’ aides, security guards, maintenance personnel, housekeepers and dietary workers. Ninety percent of the recruits kept their journals over a six-month period, finishing their training and stayed on to perform their low-status positions. After a year 80 percent were still employed or had taken better jobs. One in three had moved into improved housing; one in four had actually started night school or community college.

Would you believe that much of the credit for this advancement was given to the journal-keeping discipline? The director of the experiment stated, “Poverty is not simply the lack of money. Ultimately, it is a person’s lack of feeling for the reality of one’s own inner being.”

Spiritual poverty could be defined in much the same terms. The spiritually impoverished believer has a lack of feeling for the reality of his or her own inner being and the relationship of that being to God. Maybe you’re someone who feels like you live a low-stakes spiritual existence. It’s not that you haven’t tried, but for too long your relationship with the Lord has been at a stand-still. The time-honored practice of keeping a spiritual prayer journal stimulates journal keepers to experience accelerated, measurable and long-term spiritual growth.

The committed diarist will advance out of the pablum, spoon-feeding necessary for young immature Christians into taking responsibility for one’s own spiritual state and the growth needed for it to progress.

Well now, I believe one of the easiest ways to get started prayer journal is by writing down your God Hunt“Sightings.” What could be easier?

——————————————–

Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.

We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.

For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

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