I cannot count how many times I have thanked God for my car; it’s a reliable car.  And when I think about how I stumbled upon this car, I cannot help but be amazed by the way God guided me to this car, not to other cars.  I may have shared the story with you but let me tell you again.  I almost bought another car, had it not been for the confession made by the young man, the son of the car’s owner.  He was asked by his sister to accompany me to test-drive the car, and it was then while we were driving around, he started talking about the car’s problems.  Even after we got back, in front of his sister, he still tried to dissuade me to buy the car.  Poor guy, he got good scolding!  But thanks to him, I did not buy that car, which led me to this car.

When I look back on my life, I must say that all wrong decisions that I made were not caused by the lack of guidance from the Lord but rather by my ignoring the guidance that He gave.  In retrospect I must admit that God had always given me signs; it was I who failed to notice.  Sometimes I did not think that those were signs from God but there were times I failed to notice because I did not want to pay attention to these signs.  I wanted to follow my heart, not His signs.

Sadly, I am not alone; there are many who are like me.  I have seen those who follow their hearts, not signs from God.  Their emotions or sometimes their ambitions got in the way; instead of seeing signs that guide them to stop or to re-route, they keep going, like Jonah the prophet who remained stubbornly angry at God for forgiving the people of Nineveh who had repented.  Through this I learned that once we have decided what it is we want to see, it is nearly impossible to change our mind.  We keep looking even though there is nothing to look anymore, just like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who insisted on seeing the Messiah of their choice.  They did not see Jesus as the Messiah they wanted, so they killed Him.

Pastor Paul