Good morning. As I’ve said, I still need your prayers because I’m in a spot where I feel lost. I’ve felt lost before, but not like this. Over the course of the past several years, I just haven’t felt as if I’ve been where I belong. I often talk about my driving job, and it just didn’t seem as if I belonged there. But I had nowhere else to go, so I stayed.
Once I left, the plan was to stay with Dad for a while, but he took a turn for the worse, and he passed away much sooner than expected. Now, I’m in his home waiting for it to go through probate, and I’m slowly going through Mom and Dad’s things with little-to-no motivation. And it just seems like, God, where am I going? No job to go back to, no home to go back to…it’s just an empty blank whiteboard without a marker.
So I went from lost to even more lost. And so today’s sermon, I guess, is just as much, if not more for me than for you. But I hope that you gain from it as much as I do.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Psalm 32. We’ll be reading verses 8 through 11. As you’re turning there, I’d like to read to you a story about Albert Einstein. You’ve probably heard the great irony about how one of the greatest scientific minds of all time was also notoriously scatterbrained. The story goes that….
Albert Einstein was traveling from Princeton on a train. When the conductor came down the aisle punching tickets Einstein reached in his vest pocket; he could not find his ticket, so he reached in his trouser pockets. It wasn’t there so he looked in his briefcase, but still could not find it. He looked in the seat next to him, but it was not there.
The conductor kindly said, “Dr. Einstein, I know who you are, we all know who you are. I’m sure you bought a ticket, don’t worry about it.” The conductor then continued on his way punching tickets. Just before he went to the next car he turned around and saw the great scientist on his hands and knees looking under his seat for his ticket.
The conductor rushed back and said, “Dr. Einstein, Dr. Einstein, don’t worry. I know who you are. No problem. You don’t need a ticket.”
Einstein said, “Young man, I too know who I am. What I don’t know is where I am going.”
Have you ever felt like you’re on a moving train, but don’t know where you’re going? Today I’d like to talk more about it in a spiritual sense. Maybe you’re loving, serving, and trusting God with all your heart, mind, and strength, yet you feel like God’s got you going nowhere. You don’t know where or when the train will stop, and when it does, how do you know that it’s your destination and not another stop down the road? What if you get off at the wrong stop?
Those are great questions. Let’s look at our scripture for today.
Scripture: Psalm 32: 8-11
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
9 Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.
10 Many are the woes of the wicked,
but the Lord’s unfailing love
surrounds the one who trusts in him.
11 Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;
sing, all you who are upright in heart!
It’s not uncommon to feel as if we don’t know where we’re going because, truth be told, we aren’t often told where we’re going. Maybe we’re riding that train in complete faith that it’ll get us to our destination, even though we don’t know where our destination is. And we have to trust that God will tell us which station to get off at, and hopefully before the train leaves again.
We have to trust–as scary as it is–that when we place our lives in God’s hands, He promises to guide us through this life with meaning and purpose–and though it may not seem like it at times–we might be right in the middle of his will and not even know it, see it or feel it.
I want to look at verse 8 again:
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
Have you ever thought about God having his eye on you? You’re probably familiar with the song, “His Eye is on the Sparrow.”
That song was inspired by a passage in Matthew 6: “ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
And then later on in Matthew 10: “29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Some will point to Psalm 32:8 as an inspiration. But did you know the real inspiration behind the song actually has a local connection? I’ve shared this before, but let me share it again.
Civilla Martin was the wife of a Baptist minister, Dr. Walter Stillman Martin. This is what she said:
“Early in the spring of 1905, my husband and I were sojourning in Elmira, New York. We contracted a deep friendship for a couple by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle—true saints of God. Mrs. Doolittle had been bedridden for nigh twenty years. Her husband was an incurable cripple who had to propel himself to and from his business in a wheelchair. Despite their afflictions, they lived happy Christian lives, bringing inspiration and comfort to all who knew them. One day while we were visiting with the Doolittles, my husband commented on their bright hopefulness and asked them for the secret of it. Mrs. Doolittle’s response was simple: ‘His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.’ The beauty of this simple expression of boundless faith gripped the hearts and fired the imagination of Dr. Martin and me. The hymn ‘His Eye Is on the Sparrow’ was the outcome of that experience.”
Have you ever felt like God forgot about you? Have you ever felt like God was too busy keeping his eye on other ‘more important’ people? Like, ‘real’ Christians?
I’ve thought that. I’ve heard testimony after testimony about how God did this and God did that, and hallelujah he even did this too! Well, if you don’t have testimonies like that, you kind of think there’s something wrong with you.
Many times, I’ve thought surely God did not have His eye on me. Because if He did, I thought I’d act like those preachers with testimony, testimony, testimony, glory hallelujah!
But then you hear or read a story like Mrs. Doolittle in Elmira and realize, it’s just a matter of perspective. God has His eye on you, no matter what the circumstance. It might not be how we thought life would turn out, but God has His eye on us nonetheless.
As I told the board last week, my marriage is ending after 25 years. Never in a million years would I have ever thought this would happen to me. I thought it would have been happy, solid, and secure. When I was going to church here as a teenager, thinking about what life might be like by the time I’m 50 (which I’m not quite there yet), I thought I’d be happy, in a great place in life. I thought life would just get better and better the older I got.
After all, it’s been blessed so far. It’ll continue to be blessed. Remember–testimony, testimony, testimony. God’s got his eye on me. I’m His. I’m me. He’ll never let that happen to me.
We might be listening to God’s voice, obeying every step. Then we find ourselves with disappointments and heartache that crush us. But we need these reminders that wherever we are, whatever disappointment we’re going through, God has His eye on us.
That leads me to the next verse. Verse 9 says:
9 Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.
So David is saying in this psalm to not be like the horse or mule. Do not be stubborn. I would like to put a little different spin on this by reversing the ‘do not’ with the ‘do.’ In other words, if we have the ‘do not’ then what shall we ‘do’ instead?
One of the first things I learned about training a horse is the relationship a horse has with its rider. I grew up thinking the horse was just something you hopped on and rode. I mean, all the movies I saw were just that. The horse was just a means to get from one place to another. But like a family pet, the point of having a horse is developing a relationship. And after a while, you get to know your horse, read your horse, give your horse signs and cues of what you want it to do while you’re riding; and after a while, you’ll develop a connection and not you–but the two of you together in unison–are accomplishing a task, especially if you’re in any sort of arena doing some sort of competition.
It takes time and patience, but most of all, it takes a loving relationship. The horse has to be willing to bond with you. And usually, it will if you’re consistent and loving. The horse has to know who’s boss, and the horse has to be willing to submit to who’s boss.
When that’s achieved, the two of you can do all kinds of things together–jump over a bar, race around barrels, go through obstacles, and when the horse has trust in you, you can consistently take your horse’s skill to new levels by asking and training the horse to go above and beyond what it has in the past until the two of you have created something beautiful, like a dance.
Because a horse’s eyes are to the side of their head, they have a large blind spot in the front, which means they have to rely on their rider as a guide. The horse can’t see a jump the closer it gets to the jump. It disappears from their view. That’s where the trust comes in. The rider has to know ahead of time how to lead that horse to the jump with precise pacing and speed. Think of the trust that is required. And the horse has to know and trust the leading of its rider in order to follow a precise direction.
And think of this, the horse never sees its rider. But the rider is there with the horse all along, guiding it, telling it when to jump.
The relationship between horse and rider is done through non-verbal communication. You can click your tongue, you can squeeze your legs around the side of the horse certain ways, you can dig your heels in–that’s why cowboys wear spurs. Here’s something that I find amazing, a horse can be so sensitive to the rider that if you’re sitting on top of the horse, it can determine where you want to go based on where you are looking. And it can determine where you are looking based on the subtle weight distribution in the saddle by just turning your head. After the right kind of trust, timing, and training, it doesn’t take much for a horse to be guided.
And this is how God is with us, if we are willing to be like the horse, accepting God as our authority and submitting to him. It takes time and effort to learn and hear our master’s voice and understand his leading in subtle ways. He’s always there, always with us, leading and guiding us even though we don’t see him. But we can have that kind of relationship with him, knowing he’s leading.
We want to hear our master’s voice like the RCA dog. Do you remember that ad for RCA with the dog looking intently into the horn of an old phonograph with the caption, “His Master’s Voice?”
Even though we want to hear God like a phonograph, it’s unfortunately not like that with God. He wants the relationship of a horse and rider, not a dog and phonograph. I had earphones on listening to praise music while typing this up. How I wish God would just speak so audibly like that. But God wants the relationship of a willing horse, not a stubborn mule. God doesn’t force a stubborn mule, he lets the mule be stubborn. Even though God doesn’t live in the realm of time like we do, but for lack of better words, he doesn’t want to waste his time on a stubborn mule when he can have a willing horse that he can develop a relationship with.
Let’s conclude with these last two verses:
10 Many are the woes of the wicked,
but the Lord’s unfailing love
surrounds the one who trusts in him.
11 Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;
sing, all you who are upright in heart!
David ends these verses with praise, as he usually does. The example that David sets for us is this; and Paul said it well to the church in Philippi: “6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Quite often, I believe that the reason why David’s psalms ended with praise and trust is not because he made it a habit, but because the Spirit came to him, and gave him that peace. We have peace that the World doesn’t have. We face the same problems the World does, but God gives us peace in those circumstances that the world doesn’t have.
We still face problems like a career choice that went south, a marriage that fell apart, or sickness like the story of The Doolittles in Elmira; it could just be everyday problems of everyday life. Maybe we wake up day after day–even as Christians and have wondered, God, what am I doing? How did I get here?
The question should not be ‘why,’ but ‘what.’ It should be, “God, what do you want me to do while I’m here in this place? How can I be faithful in this circumstance?”
Then, be open and sensitive to the leading of The Holy Spirit to call you and guide you to what he wants you to do wherever you are in the moment, and in whatever circumstance life has handed you.
You never know how you can be a blessing right where you are. You never know how this circumstance can create a ministry that never would have happened, had you not been where you are. You never know how God can turn that mess into a message. Maybe you have a ‘testimony, testimony, testimony’ after all.
Rick Warren said: “If you give it to God, He transforms your test into a testimony, your mess into a message, and your misery into a ministry.”
This is a great example of that from Christian author, Tricia Goyer who said:
I got pregnant twice as a teen. The first time I chose to have an abortion—something I really regret. The second time I dropped out of school and had my baby. It was during that time—when I needed help the most—that I opened my heart to God.
Yet for many years I was ashamed to be a (former) teenage mother. I felt like everyone was judging me. I tried to be perfect. (And actually, I think it was more in my head than anything!)
It was only later when my pastor asked if I’d help start a crisis pregnancy center that my past “mess” became my “message.” Instead of feeling as if I had to prove myself, I started reaching out to young women, telling them they could be great moms and do wonderful things with their lives.
I started to encourage them and offer them help and advice. Our support group brought in caring mentors and inspiring and helpful speakers, and they offered assistance for their basic needs such as the need for diapers and baby clothes. I wanted to “hide” my past, but God wanted to redeem it! He knew that my story would connect with young women . . . because I’ve been there!
I know I’ve referenced this a lot, and I’m going to do it again as we close. Romans 8:28 once again says, “28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
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