—MOMay 1971GP NO.74

1. THE LORD IS TRYING TO TEACH YOU TO MAKE DECISIONS, ONE OF THE MAIN PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN REACHING A DECISION IS: DON'T START TALKING—PRAY! God likes you to give Him a little honour. Prayer is not just to get down on your knees and speak your piece but to let God speak His, too!—And wait until He answers. You've got to get not only in prayer, but you've got to get in the Spirit. And if you do‚ He'll tell each one of you what you're supposed to do. The only trouble I have sometimes is having a battle over doing what the Lord tells me to do—the problem most of us have.—But at least I do hear! You guys don't even wait long enough to find out!

2. MY FIRST REACTION, UNLESS THE LORD SUGGESTS AN ALTERNATIVE, IS USUALLY RIGHT. You asked me for my suggestion and I gave it. Now everyone wants to do something else, so it's your problem. It just looks like to me that the stage is set and the time is right.

3. YOU NEED TO LEARN TO TALK TO THE LORD, AND HOW TO LISTEN MOST OF ALL. It's not up to the King to try to go chasing his subjects around screaming and hollering at them to try to get them to do what he wants. You come to him with quietness and respect and you sincerely and in trembling present your petition‚ and you wait silently to get the answer. But I'm afraid sometimes you in prayer, go yackety-yacking among yourselves, discussing and arguing, and you couldn't hear the Lord if you tried. You have to fear, respect, and reverence the Lord, and treat Him like the King He is. I think sometimes Spirit filled people who are so familiar with the Spirit and the Lord—I think sometimes familiarity breeds contempt. The Lord is so sweet and so close to you‚ you don't respect Him like you ought to.

4. UNLESS WE KNOW BY FAITH THAT WE'RE DOING THE RIGHT THING, EVEN IF WE ARE DOING THE RIGHT THING, IT IS A SIN—BECAUSE WE'RE NOT SURE IT'S RIGHT. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Some of the old line denominations know more about prayer than you do. We get so busy with Bible Prophecy‚ Witnessing, Memorising, etc.—but if you don't know how to pray, you've got the letter of the Law rather than the Spirit. I don't care how many gifts you have—if you don't keep in touch with the Lord all the time, you're in trouble. If anybody can talk about prayer and could really teach you some things about it, it's Mother Eve. She gets a lot of things that way!

5. I NEVER SPENT MUCH TIME READING THE BIBLE OR PRAYING IN THE WAY SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT I OUGHT TO DO IT. But you don't have to be down on your hands and knees praying frantically to be heard. Prayer is something you're doing all the time no matter what else you're doing. You can't wait until you're through doing this or that, and then pray. It's like thinking on your feet!

6. I ASKED MY GRANDFATHER ONE TIME WHAT THE SECRET OF HIS SPEAKING SUCCESS WAS‚ and he said, "I just get so full of my subject before-hand, and when I get in front of the audience I just speak right out of my heart." That's the secret of prayer. When did he fill his heart? He filled his mind and heart with the things he needed to know before he got up to speak. Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Fill up your heart and you won't have any trouble knowing what to say,—or what to do. It really tees me off to see you guys running around sometimes fussing and fuming and wondering what you're to do—and not asking the Lord. If the Lord interjects a new factor into the equation, you just refigure and finally come up with a new answer. Apparently I haven't emphasised the importance of prayer—one of the most important things! There are times you're in action and you can't get quiet—you've got to pray as you go. It's like the soldier preparing for battle—there better be a quiet time. Any soldier in his right mind is going to pray before and during the battle. But in the Lord's battle, you're going to get most of your tactics ahead of time! Like Patton—I believe he got most of his inspiration from the Lord. He ran largely by inspiration. He'd plan way ahead what his tactics and strategy was going to be. Then during the battle, sometimes he'd make split second decisions and change plans—but mostly it was just like he had found out ahead of time!

7. I DON'T SEE HOW YOU CAN HEAR THE LORD WHEN YOU'RE MAKING SO MUCH RACKET! Clear back in Huntington Beach I talked to you about this. I said, "You guys remind me of Samuel in reverse. When he heard the Lord in the quiet of the night, he said‚ 'Speak Lord, Thy servant heareth!’ But the way most people pray is 'Hear Lord, Thy servant speaketh.’" Most Christians are more concerned in having God hear what they have to say than they are in hearing what God has to say. They're trying to put their programme across on God and get Him to sign His Name to their programme. I heard someone say one time, "Are you willing, not to present your programme to God for His Signature, not even to be presented with God's programme for you for your signature—but are you willing to sign a blank sheet of paper and let God fill it in without your even knowing what His programme is going to be"!

8. ALL THIS RUNNING AROUND AND MACHINERY—IF YOU DON'T LOOK OUT—IF YOU KEEP THIS UP YOU'LL BE JUST LIKE THE REST OF THE CHURCHES. Like the little girl said about the kitty, "O Mama, the kitty's gone to sleep and left its engine running!" You may run around and still be asleep spiritually, and you may not be getting anywhere—as one that beateth the air! It's really pitiful—I'm really concerned about it! Because unless you get quiet and try to seek the Lord, how are you ever going to get anything from the Lord! I'm fully convinced I've got more from the Lord alone and quiet than ever any other way. Because He can talk to you alone, and you can give Him your full attention and the reverence due Him—and you're listening. If you're in a roomful of people, and the TV is on—if they keep raising their voices and drowning out the TV—no matter how loud the volume is, you won't get what it has to say. And the Lord, unlike TV, will just shut up if you don't listen!

9. YOU OUGHT TO READ WHAT IT HAS TO SAY IN THE BIBLE! Have the kids learned yet how to be quiet? Anybody can make a racket—anybody can dance, sing, scream "Jesus Saves" and shout "Hallelujah!" But it takes study to be quiet! You've got to really make an effort to be quiet!

10. I WAS A VERY QUIET LITTLE BOY, AFRAID OF PEOPLE—INTROVERTED—SHY! MAYBE THAT'S WHY I HEARD SO MUCH FROM THE LORD. I was always going around by myself alone, and I was always hearing all kinds of things. And I know now, it was the Lord teaching me Himself! I loved to be alone. Only in recent years have I learned to enjoy the fellowship of others. I love to be alone with the Lord because you can hear God so clearly when you're alone and quiet. The Lord speaks in a still small, but very definite, very firm‚ but very loving voice—but if you're too noisy you're not going to hear it! Maybe our kids need to learn how to pray! You know, you can be alone out in the woods, and think you've got to go out to pray alone—but when you get there‚ you scream at the top of your voice. Well, you're alone, but defeating the purpose of being alone. You're yelling so loud yourself, you can't hear the Lord. Maybe you just want to let the whole camp know you're praying and how spiritual you are. That's not the kind of prayer I'm talking about. God's not deaf: You have to wait awhile and see if He's going to answer your prayer: stop and be quiet and wait for the answer. You yourself can be your own distraction! If you're yelling and praying so loud and making so much noise you can't even hear God, there's no point in asking! If you're not going out to get quiet and listen, then there's really not much point in going!

11. IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HEAR HIM, HE'LL TALK TO YOU. If I lived in the midst of such confusion, I'd never have written you anything. I never could have begun to hear the Lord—yelling‚ arguing, telephones ringing, people running in and out! How in the world can you hear the voice of the Lord? The only time you can hear is when you sit down and get quiet! God doesn't usually scream! By the time God starts screaming at you‚ it's too late. When it gets to the point He has to yell over your racket to be heard by you, He's probably so mad, it's too late. One of these days the Church, who is making so much racket now themselves they can't hear from the Lord—they're finally going to hear when God starts thundering out His judgments. Boy, you get quiet then! You shut up then and listen. But it's a little too late then. If you don't pay any attention to the yelling, then you get swatted down, and knocked for a loop, so you'll have to listen! That's why God has to knock so many people flat in an accident or illness or bereavement—to make them stop long enough to listen. A funeral is about the only time a lot of worldly people ever stop running long enough to listen to the Lord!

12. LORD HELP US TO GET QUIET BEFORE HIM AND LISTEN! Not only make other people shut up, but shut up ourselves. If you don't have some quiet time with the Lord, I don't know how you can operate! I get most of my information from the Lord, alone in the quiet of the night when everything is absolutely still and it's completely without distraction. If I wake up in the night and can't go back to sleep, I usually figure that's what it's for. But if you can't sleep, maybe God wants you to pray! As soon as I get prayed up I go right back to sleep!

13. MAYBE ONE REASON I HAVEN'T TALKED TOO MUCH ABOUT PRAYER IS THAT I'M VERY SELF–CONSCIOUS ABOUT TALKING ABOUT WHEN AND WHERE I PRAY AND HOW MUCH I PRAY‚ because you can lose some of the benefits that way. I've known people who've gone around bragging about their prayer life. Well, they have their reward. I don't know how much they hear the Lord or how much good it does them. Most of the things I get from the Lord, nobody knows I'm praying—it's just between me and the Lord. "Go into thy closet and shut the door, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." Now there's a time for public prayer, when you pray together in a group—a time to unite you hearts together before the Lord. And if the whole congregation will get quiet, God will even speak there.

14. IN HUNTINGTON BEACH PEOPLE COULD NOT BELIEVE IT WHEN THEY SAW 50 PEOPLE STANDING AROUND HOLDING HANDS IN A CIRCLE, NOT EVEN SPEAKING A WORD—JUST WAITING. We did this every night and every day, and God answered, because we just stood there and insisted on hearing from Him. And believe you me, He talked wonderfully! We'd have a class, then we'd pray—and prayer wasn't screaming at God. We'd get around and hold hands and praise the Lord a little bit—prime the pump—please Him by praising Him—like coming before the King and salaaming, and then you stay on your knees, and shut up and see what He has to say. That's the way it usually works! You praise the Lord first of all—maybe somebody leads in prayer—then the stream of praise begins to die down, and you wait for the Lord to speak. And then maybe somebody gives a little application or judgment of it. A lot of times people don't understand what the Lord has said, You say something like, "Praise the Lord! You see what the Lord said? He said so-and-so." And then you praise the Lord some more and then wait.

15. WE USED TO GET MESSAGE AFTER MESSAGE THROUGH THOSE BABES—Shad fresh off the street from that bicycle of his—kids right off the beach and the street were learning to pray! Two of the girls would walk in so full of the Spirit, prophesying: marvellous! Some of you leaders don't even trust your babes after a year! Why, I made Shad the manager of the Club just a few weeks after he first came. And most of the kids he had to work with, like Abner‚ for example‚ were brand new—we just put them right to work! And they did a terrific job! Why? Because they didn't know what to do, so they asked the Lord. And that way they just got along great! I tell you, Shad had a ripsnorter of a prayer meeting down at that Club every morning—they never started a day without prayer—really asking the Lord to help!

16. I THINK FOR YOU PERSONALLY, IT'S A LITTLE DANGEROUS TO WAIT UNTIL THINGS START STIRRING IN THE MORNING. You can't just depend on these united prayer sessions—sometimes they don't have 'em! You're going to have to get quiet by yourself—somewhere, somehow‚ sometime, if you're going to hear from the Lord!

17. I THOUGHT WE HAD THIS PROBLEM IN QUESTION IRONED OUT‚ BUT NOW CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE CHANGED and we have to pray again. You have to play it by ear—and it better be your ear and the Lord's music! I guess to some Christians, playing it by ear means getting God's ear—trying to yell at God and shove their programme across! I know very little—I just have to ask the Lord!—And He's the one who has to tell you what to do!

18. IF YOU JUST CAN'T POSSIBLY GET ALONE WITH THE LORD SOMETIMES, AT LEAST YOU CAN GET QUIET IN A GROUP AND LISTEN! How much do the kids know about being quiet before the Lord—about reverencing the Lord? How many quiet times do you have, studying to be quiet? In quietness and confidence shall your strength be. Do you know what "confidence" means?—It's faith! The very fact that you keep quiet shows you have faith! It shows you're expecting God to do something, and not trying to do it yourself! If you don't know what to do, stop everything!—Get quiet and wait for God to do something! The worst thing in the world you can do is to keep on going when you don't know what to do. That was Saul's mistake. It absolutely lost him the Kingdom! Because he kept right on moving even after he didn't know what to do. He figured he had to just keep busy and keep going no matter what!

19. STOP EVERYTHING! STOP THE WHOLE CAMP: FAST AND PRAY. We used to be in some serious sessions to find the will of God, and some people would come in and start talking about food, and I'd say, "Forget the meal! Let's all get down to prayer‚ then we won't have to worry about supper!" You just get busy listening to the Lord, and you won't have to be bothered with these other things you think you have to do. After all, if you're there at His Service and asking Him what to do, He'll sure take care of things, if you're waiting on Him!

20. GETTING QUIET BEFORE THE LORD SHOWS YOU HAVE FAITH THAT GOD IS GOING TO HANDLE THE SITUATION, HE'S GOING TO TAKE CARE OF THINGS. IT SHOWS YOU TRUST THE LORD. "Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee." If you're not trusting, you're going to be in confusion all the time. Here's a nice little poem for you: "When we're trusting, we're not heard to fret! When we're fretting, we're not trusting yet!"

21. IF YOU'RE IN A BIG STEW, CONFUSED AND WORRYING AND FRETTING AND FUMING, YOU'RE NOT TRUSTING. YOU DON'T HAVE THE FAITH YOU OUGHTTA HAVE. Trusting is a picture of complete rest, peace and quiet of mind, heart, and spirit. The body may have to continue working‚ but your attitude and spirit is calm.

22. One thing I want to say for Jeth: He has great faith. That's why the Devil tries to lie to him and tell him he doesn't have any faith. The Devil always tries to find the weak spot in your strongest point, and strike at that! Jeth's got a lot of faith: He couldn't run that camp without a lot of faith!

23. THAT'S WHY YOU CAN HAVE PEACE IN THE MIDST OF STORM—CALM IN THE EYE OF THE HURRICANE. I've told you about that picture that won the contest and illustrated peace. Most of the artists handed in these quiet, calm pastoral scenes—absolute total quiet. That's a form of peace! But the hardest kind of peace to have is the picture that won the award! That was a picture of this horrible roaring, raging cataract—a river in all its foaming and fury. But on a little branch right above, overhanging the raging current, there was a beautiful little nest with a tiny bird sitting there and peacefully singing away in spite of the storm! That's when your faith gets tested: In the midst of the storm! Quietness is a sign of faith!

24. GOODNIGHT, MAN! MOSES HAD FROM TWO TO SIX MILLION PEOPLE SITTING OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT WAITING ON HIM, tearing their hair, wondering what are we going to eat, what are we going to drink, where are we going, what are we going to do? And what's Moses do? He takes off for the top of the mountain and sits up there with the Lord for 80 days straight.

25. WHAT IF HE HAD BEEN FRETTING ALL THE TIME. "What if something happens? I have to get back. What if Aaron makes a golden calf"—which he did! And the time Moses did get upset and break the tablets, he had to go back and stay another 40 days to get quiet again! What good did it do for him to get upset—he just had to get quiet again to hear from the Lord. He might as well have come down and taken it quietly and calmly. It would have saved him another 40 days up there.

26. JESUS, ON THE EVE OF HIS MINISTRY‚ GOES OUT AND‚ SOME PEOPLE WOULD SAY, WASTES 40 DAYS AND NIGHTS ON THE MOUNTAIN HIMSELF, and it seemed like He spent much of the time with the Devil. He had to lick the Devil first! If you don't get alone with the Lord and lick the Devil first, you might as well forget it! I wonder how much of that 120 years Noah spent praying! He must have spent some time, or he couldn't have gotten all those directions on how to build that boat! Remember, they'd never ever seen a boat before! God probably gave him the exact specifications for every inch of the boat! It never had even rained before. But he just went calmly about his business building the Ark. He could have gotten feverish thinking rain was coming any minute and just slapped it together. But he just went calmly along 120 years working on that boat!

27. GOOD NIGHT! YOU'D THINK YOU WERE SPENDING A LOT OF TIME PREPARING IF YOU JUST SPENT 120 DAYS AT IT! It sure showed Noah had faith!

28. THAT'S WHY THEY SAY FARMERS MAKE THE BEST MISSIONARIES, BECAUSE THEY DON'T EXPECT EVERYTHING IN ONE DAY. They have a lot of patience in the long process of waiting for the plants to grow, or the animals to produce. The farmer just has to trust that the Lord will make them grow and not worry about it! God does the biggest part of the job. He sends the rain: He makes it grow! All the farmer is there for is to supervise things. If there's any picture of a quiet type of personality, it's the farmer! The city folks make fun of the farmers. But if the farmers didn't take it slow, they'd go crazy‚ like the city people! The farmer's motto is "Go slow"! The farmer is a perfect example of faith and patience. That's why so few people want to live on the farm. Because it takes too much dependence on God!—There's not too much they can do—they have to leave it all up to God! They're moving off the farms in droves. God's too much in control. It's too quiet out there—they call it too dead—no action, they say! But Man‚ if they just would get up there on the top of one of those hills, they'd hear a lot going on. Watch the storm, look at the trees, watch the animals, listen to the thunder! But usually the action is very quiet and doesn't make a lot of commotion! But some people have to be in motion all the time—they've got to be doing something! And I think one reason is, they don't want to think! That's why they have so many amusements, and you know what that word means—"away from thinking". People are absolutely scared stupid of the quiet and the stillness, because they know the voice of God might come through! So the Devil keeps their mind and their eyes, and their ears filled with noise and violent sights and sounds! That's why cities are such a curse! They're totally man-made environments!—So they get entirely away from God—hardly a blade of grass, and where you can't see the stars or the sun or moon or the sky. They live underground!—Screeching, screaming, subways, horrible noise of traffic! There's much more deafness amongst city children than country children, because they live in an atmosphere of noise—constant noise. Whereas country children have very keen hearing. If you live in an atmosphere of spiritual and physical confusion‚ you'll develop a hardness against the Voice of God, because you have to develop a deafness against all the noises around you! Then you can't even hear the Lord! But if you live in quiet and peace and calm and stillness, you'll find your ears really becoming very keen and sharp. I've always had an extremely keen sense of smell and of hearing. Maybe that's 'cause I spent so much time in the woods and in the country. Country people are usually slow, plodders, patient! They live next to God's creation and they are dependent on the Lord! We should take a lesson from the farmer! City people become dull of hearing and hardened of heart!

29. THIS LOUD TYPE OF MUSIC IS DEAFENING YOUNG PEOPLE TODAY—it's that constant beating on your ear drums that hardens it. It's like a callous that develops in order to preserve your ears. Think of the years Abraham spent out in the fields watching flocks! No wonder he heard from the Lord: He had time to listen! Lord forgive us! We get so busy! If you're too busy to pray, you're too busy! If you're too busy to get alone with God and pray, you're too busy! What if the servant said to the King, "I'm sorry‚ I can't come and listen to your orders today, I'm too busy out serving you!!"

30. THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB YOU HAVE IS LISTENING TO THE KING: TO STOP, LOOK AND LISTEN!—OR YOU'RE GOING TO GET RUN OVER!

31. I TOLD YOU THE OTHER DAY THAT'S THE GREATEST DANGER: ALL THIS FEVERISH ACTIVITY! This is the greatest temptation of workers for the Lord! The following was one of Grandmother's favourite poems:

"First Place"

I was longing to serve the Master,

But alas I was laid aside

From the busy field of workers

In the harvest field so wide

They were few, yes, few in number

And I could not understand

Why I should be left inactive:

It was not as I had planned.

I was longing to serve the Master

And the need indeed was great.

For me it was easy to labour

But oh, it was hard to wait,

To lie quite still and be silent

While the song was borne to my ear

From the busy field of workers

In the harvest field so dear!

I was longing to serve, just to serve the Master,

But He led to a desert place

And there as we stopped and rested

His eyes looked down in my face,

So full of tender reproaching

They filled me with sad surprise!

Did He think I had grudged my service

Or counted it sacrifice?

Oh, Master, I long to serve‚ just to serve thee,

There are so few at the best,

Let me off to the fields, I pleaded,

I care not to stay and rest.

I knelt at His feet imploring,

I gazed in His face above.

My child, He said‚ don't you know

Your service is nothing without your love?

I was longing to serve, to serve my Master,

Oh, this was my one fond thought,

For this I was ever pleading

As His footstool in prayer I sought‚

But there in that lonely desert

Apart from the busy scene

It dawned on me slowly and clearly

Where my great mistake had been.

My mind was so full of service, just service,

I had drifted from Him apart,

And He longed for the sweet communion,

That UNION OF HEART WITH HEART!

Well, I sought and I found forgiveness,

While mine eyes with pain were dim.

And NOW‚ though His WORK is still precious,

The FIRST place is kept for HIM!

32. I'LL NEVER FORGET HOW WE GOT AWAY ONE TIME TO ACTUALLY HEAR FROM THE LORD—to hear God speak through Grandmother. They had all kinds of confusion of tongues, but no interpreter! So we went up into the mountains to listen to the Lord. And they got to praying and shouting and talking in tongues, and on and on they went, and all of a sudden the Lord began to speak. He said something like: Behold the Bride-groom is at the door, and He has bestowed upon you the gifts, and you're so busy playing with them like toys, you have forgotten the Bridegroom! Like the father coming home with gifts for his children. The kids grab the presents, forget to kiss their father and greet him, and sit down on the floor and start playing with the toys!

33. AND THERE ARE A LOT OF CHRISTIANS THAT DO THIS VERY SAME THING—THEY START PLAYING WITH THE THINGS OF GOD, AND NEGLECT GOD HIMSELF! Or like that little story about the Bedroom Slippers: The little girl who took her fellowship time with her father to make him bedroom slippers for his Birthday‚ and nearly broke his heart. God may appreciate the bedroom slippers you're making for Him‚ but He'd rather have you! And in fact, you'll probably make a helluva mess out of them, if you neglect Him!

34. ONE OF THE BIGGEST LESSONS YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO LEARN IS TO WAIT FOR THE LORD TO WORK! I know times when I didn't listen to the Lord, and the only way He could get me to look up was to get me flat on my back where that was the only direction I could look—straight up!

35. My mother used to give her testimony of getting so busy with the Lord's Work that the Lord had to slap her down with a malignant cancer so she'd have to give Him her full attention!

36. GOD WILL NOT TAKE SECOND PLACE EVEN TO HIS SERVICE! "I will have no other gods before Me; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God...." That probably is the greatest mistake of sincere Christians: to make a god of God's Service. All this action, all this noise, beating the air, holding a service—and so little of God! We used to sing this little song: "Let go and let God have His wonderful way. Let go and let God have His Way; He'll fill with His Spirit and keep day by day. Let go and let God have His Way." It's a lot easier for you to just let God do it! And you show you're letting go by getting quiet before the Lord! You show that you have faith by stopping your own activity and waiting for God to work! Be still and know that I am God. Study to be quiet. In quietness and confidence shall your strength be. Let all the world keep silence before Me. There was even silence in Heaven on occasion!

37. Someone just handed me this little poem entitled:

"I Didn't Have Time"

I got up early one morning

And rushed right into the day!

I had so much to accomplish

That I didn't have time to pray.

Problems just tumbled about me

And heavier came each task.

"Why doesn't God help me?" I wondered.

He answered, "You didn't ask!"

I tried to come into God's presence

I used all my keys at the lock.

God gently and lovingly chided,

"Why, Child, you didn't knock!"

I wanted to see joy and beauty,

But the day toiled on, grey and bleak.

I wondered why God didn't show me.

He said, "But you didn't seek."

I woke up early this morning,

And paused before entering the day,

I had so much to accomplish

That I had to take time to pray!

38. ONE DAY WHEN MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS CO-WORKER MELANCTHON HAD A PARTICULARLY STRENUOUS AND BUSY DAY AHEAD, Melancthon suggested that they cut their prayer time together at the beginning of the day in half. Luther refused vehemently, and insisted that instead of their regular two hours in prayer, they would today have to spend four hours in the presence of the Lord because they had so much to do!

39. IT USED TO MAKE SOME OF MY FOLKS SO FURIOUS when they got in a big rush to do something and I used to sit them down and make them listen to the Lord for a few hours! And they found out afterwards that usually God had already taken care of the situation.

40. WHEN MOSES WAS A REAL SMART YOUNG MAN 40 YEARS OF AGE, and really thought he knew how to do the job, he made a helluva mess out of it, and he had to run for his life, and it took God 40 years to straighten him out and show him he had to depend on Him!

41. HURRY IS A SIGN YOU'RE AFRAID YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE—WHICH MEANS YOU HAVE FEAR, WHICH MEANS YOU HAVEN'T GOT FAITH! If you're late, take it easy! Trust the Lord! One reason we hurry when we're late‚ in the first place‚ is because it was probably our own fault and we don't want to have to suffer the consequences! That's pride! You don't want people to know you were really late!

42. AND ANOTHER REASON YOU HURRY IS THAT YOU'RE NOT TRUSTING THE LORD! You're afraid. You're afraid if you don't get there you're going to miss something. You can't trust God that He's able to hold up the whole world or stop the sun like Joshua had Him do. I'll never forget when I was rushing around trying to get the train, and the Lord warned me that if I kept up this nervous and physical strain I would kill myself. So I put it in the Lord's hands to stop the train, and I relaxed and took my time! And after I got on the train I sat there for 40 minutes wondering why the always punctual train did not leave the station. I finally asked the Lord, and He told me, "You didn't tell Me you wanted to leave yet."

43. "THE HURRIER I GO, THE BEHINDER I GET!" Just relax; slow down; don't rush; don't be hasty; squeeze—don't jerk;—and the Lord will slow everything else down for you if necessary! No use trying to kill yourself! That's why Jeth gets along so well! He takes it so calmly and doesn't get bothered! That's the only way he has survived. But my children are so high-strung‚ high-geared, wild horses! But wild horses can kill you—and you've got to learn to rest in the Lord!—And take it easier!

44. ALL THE SAMPLES IN THE BIBLE OF PATIENCE: JOB, MOSES, AND LOOK AT DAVID! He spent 24 years working under that old blunderbuss‚ King Saul, and the Lord really taught him from looking at Saul! Saul got all up-tight and tried to do things in his own strength, and he found he wasn't strong enough! David learned you have to let God do everything!—and wait for Him!

45. BUT YOU GUYS SOMETIMES REMIND ME OF SAUL! You ask the Lord something, and if you don't hear Him right away‚ you just go ahead and do the best you can! Look what happened when the prophet didn't show up and Saul went ahead with the battle without waiting for the Lord! And he lost the whole Kingdom as a result!

46. BUT SLOW IT DOWN! STOP! ... LOOK! ... LISTEN! WAIT FOR THE LORD!—ESPECIALLY IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO AND HAVEN'T HEARD FROM THE LORD YET! Where did John the Baptist show up from—the big city of Jerusalem—is that where he got his education, his anointing, his great power—The First San Hedrin Cemetery? No!—He came out of the desert—out of the woods—out of the wilderness!—So he'd have time to get away from the mob and hear from the Lord! And when he came, he sure had something to say!

47. JESUS SPENT 30 YEARS OF HIS LIFE IN PREPARATION, and only a little over three years in His public ministry! We're in such a hurry! If we don't give these out-going teams any other preparation‚ let's at least teach them how to get their orders from the Lord!

48. YOU DON'T HEAR MUCH ABOUT JOHN THE BELOVED—a little about him being with the Lord, etc. John wrote the Gospel of John—it must have taken some time with the Lord to do it! But his greatest masterpiece was written by the Lord in exile on an island. His biggest work was just letting God do all the directing and all the showing and the whole shebang! Let's slow it down! Stop! ... Look! ... Listen!, or you're going to get run over.

49. THE WORLD IS ALWAYS IN A HURRY! THAT'S THE DEVIL'S OWN MACHINERY: TO SPEED UP THE WORLD—anything to make everything move faster! God created the earth 6,000 years ago and it hasn't hardly varied in its speed since then! God never got in a hurry.—It's still revolving the same rate every day! God hasn't speeded up the seasons or the years any. Man is speeding it up—hell-bent for destruction! Slow it down: Squeeze—don't jerk! But most of all: Stop! Look! Listen! And wait! You see signs like this at dangerous places—crossings,—intersections—places of crisis—an interruption of your routine—an interruption of your way—your road—your highway! Otherwise you might get out there and get hit by an express train!

50. BUT YOU SAY, "I DON'T HAVE TIME TO STOP AND TO LOOK AND TO LISTEN!" If you don't you may never make it! Better late than never! Which is easier: to try to beat the train, to try to plough through the train, jump over the train or just to stop, watch it go by, wait another couple of minutes and it'll be out of your way and you can go peacefully on your way! Trying to force the situation and push your way through just won't work!

51. I'VE FOUND OUT THAT NO MATTER WHAT I DO, THE LORD'S WORK WILL GO ON—life will go on—the camp will go on! If it's God's Work, nothing will stop it—not even my absence! Praise the Lord? So it doesn't pay to rush around and fret and fume and try to get someplace to do something when you're supposed to be waiting on the Lord to find out for sure just where He wants you to be and what He wants you to do!

52. THE LORD IS TRYING TO TEACH YOU TO MAKE DECISIONS. DON'T START TALKING AMONGST YOURSELVES—THE FIRST STEP IS TO ASK THE LORD! God likes you to give Him a little honour. Prayer is not just getting down and speaking your piece, but most of all letting God speak His piece, and waiting in quietness and confidence until He answers! You've got to know you can't do it, and be desperate for God's answer, and stop everything else, and listen! Getting quiet before the Lord shows you have faith that God is going to handle the situation. He's going to take care of things. Take time to hear from God, and He'll take the time to straighten out the problem. Your feverish activity is nothing—your service is nothing, if you don't give the King your attention, your love, your time, your communion. Remember that hurry is lack of faith‚ and is of the Devil! If you're hurrying and rushing around, fretting, and impatient, you'll never be able to focus your full attention—your eyes, your ears, your mind, your heart on the Lord for the solution to the problem, the answer to the question‚ the best decision for the situation! But if you Stop, Look, and Listen, and Wait in communion with Him—when you have learned to do this, and to get His answer, you will have learned how to make decisions! You will have learned to pray, and will have become truly one of God's leaders. "He gives the very best to them‚ who leave the choices up to Him!"

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family