Friday, November 12, 2010
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Our local high school band worked hard to put on some great performances at our football games. I know. Our daughter was one of the trumpet players. I also remember going to band competitions at different schools. We have some precious memories of sitting on the top bleacher with a wind chill that would have made a polar bear go inside. My teeth were chattering loud enough to be in the percussion section! Our band also got to perform in several local parades. But, there's just a handful of high school bands that get invited to play in one of America's really big parades, like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. Recently, the Mountain Home, Arkansas, band had that thrill.
Inside this exciting adventure for a small town band was a wonderful true story. The band has a tuba player that you might never expect to be in a marching band. He's blind. As you think about that, it raises a lot of questions about how he could possibly participate in a marching band's maneuvers. The answer: the young woman who has dedicated herself to being his guide. She doesn't play an instrument. But anytime that band makes a move, she slips her arm in David's arm and directs him wherever he needs to go. And on Thanksgiving Day, there they were, doing their band routine in the middle of Manhattan's Herald Square - the blind tuba player and the one who guided him there.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When You Can't See the Way to Go."
Some might have thought there as no way that a blind tuba player could ever march with the band. But that would not take into account the one who made it possible - one person who is always there to guide him.
You have a person like that for the many times when you can't see the way to go. The sightless band member was able to go places he could otherwise never go; to do things he otherwise could never do because of the one who directed him. That's your story, too. Because, if you belong to Christ, God has promised that you will never be left in the dark, never be left clueless.
If you're at one of those anxious, confusing times when the road ahead is just not clear, have I got a promise for you! It's recorded in Isaiah 42:16, our word for today from the Word of God. It happens to be an anchor verse for me. Your Lord says: "I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them."
Hey, that's your promise to claim! You have nothing to fear from the unknown because you belong to the One who can see it all. And how will He show you the way? First, He'll use personalized Scriptures; verses that He will, upon request, guide you to. Verses that will seem like they have your name on them, that will be a "light for your path" as the Bible says (Psalm 119:105). Secondly, He'll guide you through prayer-time peace. Trust what you feel most consistently in the times when you are alone with God, when other voices aren't there to confuse you. God says to "let the peace of Christ rule in your heart" (Colossians 3:15). And thirdly, God will show you the way to go through confirming circumstances - open doors, recurring counsel from godly people, events that echo the Scriptures that He's been giving you.
The "don't know" times are God's instrument to drive you deeper into Him, to surrender all self-reliance for a desperate dependency on Him. You may not know which way to go, but you don't have to stand there fearful, paralyzed or marching in circles. Your Lord, your Shepherd is placing His arm inside yours to lead you where you could never go without Him.