Being Led

This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Wintersprings, Florida, where Dr. P. Vowlinson is our senior pastor. Today's sermon is the 29th and final message in a series on the Book of Exodus. This message is taken from Exodus chapter 40 verses 34 through 38, and is titled Being Led. Now here's Pete with today's message. Father, this morning how we thank you that we can come into your presence today and worship. We come into your presence today because our desire is to know the God who is, the God who was, the God who is to come, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the day Lord Jesus on the first day of the week, the day remembering the resurrection, we come before you and we honor you and we tell you that we need you, we've had the world all week, we've been making decisions, we've been making plans, we've been influenced by those who know you and who don't know you, we've seen evil, we've seen good and relative good, but today we come because we need grander in our lives, we need glory in our lives and we come before you. We come and give you honor because you are the creator, because you're the redeemer, because you know everything about us, you know everyone in this room and you know our needs. And as we come before you today, we confess our sins, Lord we know how far we've fallen short of your glory and your righteousness, and yet we come before you today, glad that we belong to you, and glad that you've given us forgiveness, and we pray that as we look into your Word today, that you would teach us, that you'd instruct us, that you'd show us more light, that you'd pave the way, Father, for us to live and lead and see what you're doing in our lives. So Father, we come before you, we ask you for your guidance, we ask you for your teaching, we ask you that you'd open up your Word to us this morning, and we pray for the one who teaches, forgive him his sins, and use one who has finite to communicate your infinite truth. Teach us, Lord, because you know how to apply by your spirit the Word to each of our lives, you know each one sitting out there, you know those who are seeking you, those who are struggling with you, those who are angry with you, those who are worried about the bills they got to pay, those who feel shame and guilt, Lord we all come before you now, and we pray that you would enable us to meet you, teach us and change us, and then Lord Jesus as we come to the Lord's supper, we pray that you would speak to us in a fresh way and meet us in the sacrament of the Lord's supper, and now we pray these things in your holy name. Amen. Well if you have your Bibles take them and turn in them to Exodus because we're finishing our study in the book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible, I don't know how long we've been studying the book of Exodus forever, it seems like, but today we finish it and next week, and this is a promotion by the way, next week we start a study in the book of John, the gospel of John in the New Testament. William Hendrixon said that the gospel of John is the greatest book ever written, who might have said it is not, and how can I as a pastor pick one book out of the Bible and say one book is better than the other? It's all, a great book, but the gospel of John is unique. Now I want to ask you this, who is the gospel of John for? Well it's for two groups of people, so as we get ready to study it next week, I want to tell you that if you've been a Christian for a very long time, the gospel of John is for you. The gospel of John is a book of belief, and we're going to see the most delightful, win some powerful person who ever lived, Jesus Christ. But if you've been following Jesus since the middle ages and your faith has gotten a little dusty, this will dust off your faith and it will encourage you and it will motivate you. It has me as I've been studying it, so it's for you, but it's also for those of you who have friends that are maybe seeking to know more about Christ, you could invite them. They probably would come if you would invite them, and then I'll try not to mess it up, and maybe they'll even come back a second time. But the gospel of John is a powerful book, and it'll all help us grow in our faith. Now, book of Exodus today, we're going to be talking about being led. Your favorite subject, right? Being led. Don't you love to have other people lead you? Of course not. That's something that we struggle with. Now some of you have bigger authority problems than others in this room, and you know who you are. But being led is not something that we really like. We don't say typically we'll wake up in the morning. I've got to find somebody to tell me what to do, to lead me. No, we typically want to call the shots in our own life. We typically want to be the kind of people because we think we're pretty good. And so we want to call the shots. We want to leave our own legacy. We want to amuse ourselves to death. We want to do all these things are fun, and we don't really want to be led by other people. I like the story. Maybe you've heard it, the story of the pastor who was walking down the street in the neighborhood and saw 10 or 12 little boys gathered around a dog. And so he comes up to him because he thinks he's they're hurting the dog and he says, what are you guys doing with that dog? You saw it's a stray in the neighborhood, and we all want it, but only one of us can take it home. So well, we figured that whoever told the best story, the best, the biggest lie, and the best lie would get to keep the dog. And so the pastor just freaks out about that. He launches into a 10-minute sermon about how lying is bad, and it's not biblical. And he ends his 10-minute diatribe by saying, don't you know that lying is a sin? And when I was your age, I never told a lie once. There was a silence. And the youngest boy pastor is saying, I got through to these guys, you know, there's a silence. And the youngest boy says, all right, give him the dog. You know, we think we're pretty good. And so this whole subject of being led, being told what to do, being told what direction to go, is really antithetical to our personality. We want to lead. We want to call the shots. Well, as we start this sermon on being led, I want to give you two basic statements about yourself. The first one that really is directly about you is this. It comes from Dan Allen's book to be told. And this is what he said. He said, we are not inanimate entities that merely reveal glory, but we are living stories that are meant to create glory. We are not inanimate objects like this that merely reveal glory. Now, this is a wonderful piece of furniture and it reveals the talent of the person who made it, but we're not just, we're not pieces of wood. We're living beings that were meant to create glory. We're stories that are meant to create glory. And I believe that's absolutely true, that when you think of who you are and you come in here today, you are somebody that is unique and that God wants to write in your life a story of glory. That's what he wants to do in you. That's what he's about doing. You know, I wasn't great in science growing up. Some of you were good in science and you're engineers and you understand science. I struggled in eighth grade biology and I struggled in 10th grade biology. I struggled in all science classes I ever took. And they said we got to get this kid out of the class and so I got through them. But I do love science. I love to read on science and one thing I've learned is I look around at the physical world. What I realize and what almost all of us instinctively have to realize is that in this world there is order and there is design. There is a sense that this world had a designer because it exhibits design and therefore because it had a designer and it exhibits design, it must have had a builder as well. I mean, you could design something on paper and never bring it to fruition or to reality. But one thing I've learned, everything in my experience shows me that there is design, therefore a designer, a great master designer and then a builder, somebody who built, except this building here. Except this building didn't have any of that. It was funny one morning we got up and we came and drove into the facility and this building was here. It just was all of a sudden here and then we started worshipping here next week. Is that how that happened? We went through how many agonizing months years of design. Doug, does it have any design flaws in this building? Yeah, there's a couple. It's a wonderful building. I like it. It's got sub-designed flaws. I'm not going to tell you where they are, but it exhibits signs of design. You say there's not a straight corner in this building. That's by design. It exhibits design, therefore a designer and therefore builders, many builders, sub-contractors who came in and made this place. Your life is that way. You look at human beings and the complexity of a human body? Guys, I'm sorry, I like science, but I've never been able to take by faith that all that exhibits design and the intricacy of this world and of the human body simply combusted out of a chaotic sense of power that exploded all by itself. Now, there may have been a big bang, but where did the power come from? What set the universe in motion? What created this world with the design that it exhibits? I just don't have enough faith to say that that happened by chance. By the way, I've never been able to see chance under a microscope. All that to say this. There is a God who created you, designed you. And what he wants to do is build into your life glory. He's writing a story. You're already created, but he's created in your life. And what he wants to create in your life is a story of his glory. That's the first point I want you to notice. We get started here today. The second thing I want you to notice is about leadership. Bob Beale said this. Bob Beale is an expert on leadership. He said this. Leadership is knowing what to do next, knowing why that's important and knowing how to bring the resources to bear on accomplishing that goal. That's a good definition of leadership. A leader knows what to do next, knows why that's important and knows how to bring appropriate resources to bear on the need at hand and accomplishing that goal. I've been a leader since I was 13. It's probably because of my authority problem. I had to be the assistant patrol leader and the patrol leader. I'm sure it's because I couldn't let anybody else lead. That definition of leadership is absolutely true. A leader has got to know what to do next, why it's important and how to bring the appropriate resources to bear on that and God is the ultimate leader of the universe. Now listen to me. He's writing a story of glory in your life. But if you're going to let that glory be seen, if that glory is going to come out, you've got to let him lead you because he is the best leader. He's the only one that can lead you. And if you're going to get the glory in your life, if you're going to have this life that is different, is unique, has strength, has stain power that reveals glory in the long run, you're going to have to let him lead you because he's the only one that can do it. He's the only one that can do it. Now with that as an introduction, we come to the last few verses in the book of Exodus. And we come to this text that is absolutely amazing. It's important to understand here what God is doing in Israel. By the way, when I was first writing those those words down as I was sitting on my new laptop, my new think pad writing out those incredible inspiring words that you just heard me say, I was writing that out and it popped up and it popped up and said, would you like to learn how to use the features better on this computer? And I thought, no, I clicked that off. I said, absolutely not. I was so offended that my computer thinks I don't use the features on my computer. I suspect that does reveal my authority problem. But I think none of us really want to be led. I think it's hard for us to be led. In fact, I think the hardest thing is to say, God, you tell me what to do. You lead me in your life. I want to write my own story. I think that's so true. Well, now, let's see what God does with the Israelites. Here's the last few verses Exodus. We've been studying the tabernacle, which was the movable, transferable temple before they built the temple in Israel. Exodus 40, verse 34 through 38. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled upon it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out. The Israelites would set out. But if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day and fire was in the cloud by night in the sight of all the house of Israel during all their travels. Now this is God's word to us and there's one big idea that I want you to get from this and that God, that it's this, that God, just like he was doing with Israel, was trying to write a story of glory in them, but he had to lead them to do it. And he led the Israelites when they were seemingly sitting still and he was leading them when they were obviously moving forward and he'll do the same thing with you. And that's what I want to talk about. Two points. That's it. There's two points today. How God will lead us even when it seems like we're sitting still when we're moving ahead. First of all, while we're standing still versus 34 through 35, notice that that God revealed his presence with the Israelites and I wish he did this today. Wouldn't it be nice is on Sunday morning, if you drove up, you saw this huge cloud over this place. I don't mean one of the Florida storms. I mean a cloud in a fixed form and you say, God's showing up today. It's cool. And you walked into this place and it was obvious that the glory of God was here. Well, the Israelites had that experience. They were all camped around the tabernacle. They looked down the street and during the day they saw the cloud at night. It was a fireworks display. There was fire, better than Disney. And they knew that God was there. But when it came to their everyday life, the day in and the day out, part of their life, the routines of their life, they never moved ahead unless God moved ahead. And there were a lot of days that they didn't move ahead because obviously God wasn't moving ahead. God's still out there. The cloud's still out there. He's not moving ahead so they couldn't take down the tent. They couldn't take down the tabernacle. They couldn't move ahead because God obviously had them to stay there. This is such an important principle that God was leading the Israelites even when they weren't moving obviously forward. Did you catch that? He was, and that's so important for you and me to understand in our lives today too. Because sometimes we get in the desert too. Do you think the Israelites ever sitting out in the desert thought, okay, Lord, we've been here a month. It is time to move on. I am bored, especially people like me. Okay, Lord, I can't sit here anymore. There's no weeds to pull. There's no crops to plant. Oh, I got these dumb animals around. And my kids are getting bored. I need some adventure, God. Have you felt that about your life, by the way? Your life in moving ahead, your kind of things aren't working out exactly like you wanted them to work out. You're kind of in the desert. You wish, you were moving ahead, making the huge advances and people came up to you and said, man, isn't it great what God is doing in your life? You're going, you want them to say that, right? I'm stuck. I'm out here. I don't move ahead. I think they thought that. I think we thought that. But we think that too. But the point is that God leads us even when it doesn't seem like we're moving ahead.

Now, how does he do it? He doesn't oftentimes serve his word. He leads us. Let me share with you a sum, because this is my story. This is my biography. I tell you, there were a lot of times. I walk in a roundup here, right? I have to be a pastor. The reason I had to be a pastor is because when I became a Christian, I knew I couldn't sit through all those sermons of other people preaching. I just couldn't sit as long as you did. I had to move. And so God said, okay, then you get up there and do that. But this is my, you know, when I don't feel like I'm moving ahead, I get antsy. Psalm 37, verse one, because there are times when you look and you see other people getting ahead who ought not to get ahead. You see those people? Yeah, that's what this psalm is dealing with. 37, one, do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong. For like the grass, they will soon wither like green plants, they will soon die away, fretting, you know, this ringing of the hands. Don't fret because of evil men who seem like they're getting ahead. And you're sitting there still not moving ahead. For like the grass, they will soon wither and grass. You think grass, withers quick in Florida when there's not enough rain and too much sun. Hey, wait, go over to Israel. When the hot shorako winds come off of the desert, come down into the sea of Galilee, they sometimes start fires in the grass. That's how hot it is. In Israel, when the grass withers, cuss of the wind, it withers quickly. It's dead. And God says, don't worry about, don't worry about the evil guys that make progress. Then He says, verse three, trust in the Lord and do good. Duel in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord. And He will give you the desires of your heart. I can't tell you the number of times. God has said to me when I said, Lord, we're not moving ahead. Fast enough. It's not happening quick enough. He says, son, trust in me and just do good. Isn't there some good you could do? Well, yeah, I could go prepare a Bible study. Yeah, I could talk to somebody who did, yeah, there's plenty to do. It's not like there isn't stuff to do that's good. He says, we'll do it. Trust me. Trust in me and do good. Duel in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Well, you just enjoy. Sometimes we want to move ahead so fast. We don't even enjoy the present. And He says, delight yourself in the Lord. He'll give you the desires of the heart. Pete, I don't want you to delight so much in what you're accomplished. I want you to delight in me, as she's saying this morning, is Jennifer saying this morning, delight in me, get captivated, get overwhelmed with who I am. I'll give you the desires of your heart, which simply means this. I'll give you the desires to have and then I'll fulfill them because I don't even have the right desires most of the time. He has to give them to me. So he says, delight yourself in me and I'll give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. The idea of commit and trust is kind of like taking a bowling ball and it says, roll it over to the Lord. Commit is the idea of rolling it to Him. Give me your desires. Commit your way to me. Trust in me and He will do this. He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like a new day sun. Be still before the Lord. That's not easy for me to do. Is it easy for you? Be still before the Lord. Wait patiently for him. I pray for patience. Oftentimes and God doesn't give it to me quick enough. Be patient. Do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked scheme. This is one of those passages when I'm out in the desert and I want to be moving ahead and I'm not moving ahead. He brings me back to over and over and over again. It's a sedative to a hyperactive soul. And you know what? God has always led. Because in the midst of the waiting, in the midst of the desert, He wants to do something. He's leading to something. He's leading you to something. John 15, 4 through 5. Remain in me and I will remain in you. Don't get out ahead of me. Remain in me. No branch can bear fruit of itself. It must remain in the vine either. Can you bear fruit unless you remain in me? Why are you over there? Come back here. I'm here. I haven't moved over there yet. You want to bear fruit? Come here. Don't get him front of me. See, we could go too slow in following him and we can go too fast.

And so in the midst of the desert, He's leading us but He's leading us to character. He's leading us to development. He's leading us. He's saying slow down. Think. Contemplate. You guys are going too fast. We American Christians move too fast. I do too. And He says slow down. Think about the word. Let it sink into your character and I went on a mini vacation this past week, went up the coast and stayed up there and then went over to Charleston, South Carolina and went in the historic district. It was very, very cool. But what else did we do? Nothing. We read books in the Bible and thought. We didn't do anything else. I got coal. I got a sick. That's great. I go away to relax. I come back sick. But we got to think. We got to pray. We got to walk on the beach. You guys had a storm down here. We missed it. I need that. You do too. Because the father says slow down because I'm doing, I'm creating a story in your life. There's some character I want to develop and if you're moving ahead, I can't develop that character in your life. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, self-control. Against such things, there's no lot. God's always trying to develop character. When I've been wanting him to move ahead to accomplish the task, He's saying, okay, we'll get the task. Let's work on character right now. What I find is that most Christians outstrip their character by doing tasks and they're not really ready to handle the tasks because they don't have the character to back it up. They say, I want to develop you. In the good times, in the bad times, so while we're waiting out in the desert, He wants to develop character in us and He also wants to bring people into our lives. He brings people in the midst of the difficult times of waiting. Is He leading? Of course, because He brings people into our lives who shape us, who mold us. During the waiting times, when you're out in the desert, you're saying, God, why aren't we moving ahead or why did this happen? He says listen to the people that I'm bringing into your life because I've got to bring people by and He's never failed to do that when I've waited. I've been so frustrated that somebody gave me a call. I want to move a head and somebody said, hey, let's get together. Let's talk. I read a book and God would bring people into my life to shape me, to mold me. When you're waiting, God is leading, but you've got to look for the people that He's trying to bring into your life because He wants to use them to talk to you. Somebody said, you become like the people you spend the most time with. Somebody else said, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. I love that. And Mike Murdoch put it this way. He says pay any price to say in the presence of extraordinary people. Pay any price to stay in the presence of extraordinary people. The problem is when we want to move ahead, we don't want to get in the presence of extraordinary people. We want to do our own thing. We want to write our own story. And in the midst of your waiting, God is saying, look for the people I'm bringing by you and learn from the good ones. Hang out with the good ones and let their story seep into yours. Learn from them. Also, while we're waiting out there as God leading us, of course He is. He wants us to deal with our trials. I read a book this past week because I had time too. And in the book, the guy asks the questions, where do most people live? I'm going to get your, I want to get your feedback on this. Do most people live in the past and the present and the future? Okay, how many think most people live in the past? Raise your hand. I think most people that you know live in the past, okay? How many think that most people live in the present? Raise your hand. Okay? How many think that most people live in the future? Well, that was pretty even. First service was a little different. I think you're more spiritual than them. I'm not sure. But my experience is that as I've looked at people's life and been involved with people for over 30 years as a pastor, I've sense that a lot of people are living in the past.

Or the future. And very, very few of us know how to live in the present. Let me ask you this, where's God? He's here, right now, today. Now he's, he's leading us to the future. He's creating the story now in our life as he leads us to the future, the past, that we've got to deal with the past. You've got to go back, you've got to look at it, you've got to say what happened, God, why? But not stay there in the past because the people who stay in the past and the events of the past, they continue to look down the black hole. And you can't get ultimate answers of why everything happened until we get home. So you got to live in the present and say, God, shape me based on what I learned from the past. Shape me now, build your character and me. I'm looking at you. I'm not looking at the past. When you look at him, you're transformed. When you look at the past, you got nothing. Because he's writing the story to take us to the glory in the future. But he's writing it now. So while you're waiting for him to lead you ahead, you've got to be dealing with the past but living in the present and saying, God, deal with, with me now, develop character in me. Can't go back and change what happened, but Lord change me. Right. Glory into my life. Last week, Ilya was here. Wouldn't he great? Many of you were here in Ilya. I was here preaching. He's one of my favorite Jewish people who happens to be a believer which is wonderful. And I love, you know, we got lunch with him, some of us. And he, he got, I loved it when he got even more Jewish talking about that. But he mentioned the word, Kovetching. And my big question was not what your mission work is, but what does Kovetching mean? He goes, let me illustrate Kovetching. Let me tell you a story. There was a Jewish man in a hospital and he's going, I'm so thirsty. I'm so thirsty. I'm so thirsty. My nurse finally hears him because I'll get you some water, brings him some water. And he goes, I was I thirsty. I was I thirsty. That's Kovetching. Kovetching is complaining even when there's transition and good stuff in the present.

I Kovetch. But I'm learning that the glory is not back there. It's it's being written now. That's what he's doing in your life too, as he builds character. But you got to get your eyes off the, you see in the midst of trials and suffering, what we do is we tend to believe the worst about God rather than the best. And he's saying, I'm trying to write glory into your life and you're thinking I'm doing the worst. When you're not moving ahead in terms of the obvious progress, this is the time to sit down and say, God loves me. We're going to take communion here just a minute. And and and and what I want you to do is I want you to understand if you're a Christian, this reminds you of who you are. Your identity is wrapped up in Jesus. God isn't mad at you. Jesus and his body in the bread has borne your sins, taken all your blame. In the cup, it shows us that his blood has been poured out. He was a sacrificial lamb who paid for our sins. God is not angry at you. He wants you to understand your identity in him. He wants you to relax and say, I'm a son. I'm a daughter of a living God who is doing something in my life right now. I can't always tell what it is, but he's in charge. You are who you are before God, nothing, nothing more, nothing less. You know, research indicates that the average person talks to themselves 50,000 times a day. I was in some place this past week and I was thinking some thought, oh, we were in a workout room and I was thinking some stuff. And then somebody else walked into the room. I said, was I saying that out loud? I do that. I talked to myself 50,000 times a day, 80% of its negative. And we constantly berate ourselves. We constantly think the worst of God and yet God is bringing good. He's bringing character. Your story is to be a story of God. Remember, I told you a couple of weeks ago, I read that book 90 minutes in heaven. I read the introduction. I finished it. And this guy's life. Did he die and go to heaven and come back? I don't know. I don't know. But I'll tell you, he would rather be in heaven because right now he's in pain right now. He's in pain 24-7. He broke this leg, this knee, this arm, this arm, and this was the only arm that was and this had IVs in it. He was a mess for months and months. He's in pain 24-7. He wore this device on his leg for so many months, I don't even know. And yet, you know, the interesting thing is he keeps running into people who had the same kind of device on his leg that he had. Oh, funny, funny. That should be how God keeps bringing him and he's able to look at them and say, I've been through that. I know. It's going to be all right. You're going to make it.

God's brought glory into his life and he wants to do that with you. Philips Brooks said character may be manifest in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones as we wait. Do not waste your suffering. You're waiting because God's leading you now. Okay, I got one other point and you're looking at your watches. Don't look there. You know, other point is simply this. God leads us while we're standing still or it seems like we're standing still, but he also leads us when we're moving forward. Yeah, this is what we tend to think. Finally, I got the green light. Finally, I can move into something new, something big, the economy. Some of you are so frustrated about the economy. I know. You want it to get going. You want it to get picked up so people will come and buy your services or your products or you could turn the deals again. I know. You say, Pete, you don't know. You've got to, you know, you're being paid here. You're salary. Yeah, I know. Who's going to pay for this thing? I want you to, if you don't become millionaires, who's going to pay for this thing? I want you all to be as long as you're tired. Yeah, the economy affects me. It affects you.

I know, but God does move us ahead. And how do we know? Well, real quick, let me tell you, when his spirit stirs you in your heart and gives you a passionate desire to serve in a new way and make a difference, when you get excited about seeing God use you in a fresh way, he's probably moving you forward. Take a step. Go. When you can't fulfill his calling where you are, he's probably moving you to a new ministry. I do, I have people come up to me from time to time and say, I got to change ministries. I got to do something else. What do you want me to do? I say, well, I'm glad you're not leaving the church. That's good. Let me find a new place for you. God moves you on. When you got to do something new, go there. Do it. When circumstances come together which give you an opportunity to go in a new direction, maybe those circumstances are showing that God has given you the next step. When you get excited about being willing to risk something big for his glory, maybe that is God. When you get Godly counsel of a lot of people that are saying, go in this direction. Yeah. Move ahead and enjoy it. God leads you when it doesn't seem like you're moving ahead. But also when he really opens the doors and say, come on, let's go. Then go. The door goes slow. Kimberly Lewis gave me this article. Richard Little Bear Wheeler told a story years ago about a traveling evangelist named Ken Gob. Ken Gob. I don't know who he is. He was an evangelist. Ken Gob tells a story and God's got your number. While driving down I-75 south of Dayton, Ohio, Ken and his family pulled in for pizza. He was exhausted from ministering to everyone else wondering if God even knew where he was. He sent his family into the restaurant and went for a walk hoping to unwind a bit. Have you ever been so tired, exhausted from a trial, a difficulty, from work, from serving? You're just tired. You think, God didn't even know where I am. That's how he felt. So after buying a Coke, he started back toward their bus and a payphone was ringing from a phone booth at a service station as he walked by. He figured he'd tell the caller that he obviously had the wrong number so he answered the phone. The operator said, long distance call for Ken Gob. Astonished. He hardly knew what to say. He even considered that he might be on Canon camera. When the operator connected the caller, she was weeping. Through her tears, she told Ken that she was riding a suicide note. She began praying and telling God she really didn't want to die. She'd seen Ken on a TV show and thought if she could talk to him, he might be able to help her. Not knowing how to contact him. She just rode down the numbers that came to her mind. She decided to take a chance that the numbers would connect her with his office in Washington state. But of course, he wasn't in his office. He was at a phone booth at Ohio. Realizing that the only God could have arranged for her to reach him, Ken counseled her and led her to the Lord. As he walked back to the bus, he realized again how in his amazing way, God had met the needs of both of them. The suicidal woman's need for salvation and hope and his own need to know that God knew where he was. We do have a need to know that God knows where we are. That we're not out in the desert all by yourself. He knows where you are. And he wants to write a story of glory into your life. Will you let him? Will you follow? Will you not live in the past but live in the present as you look to him and say, what do you want to develop in me? Write the glory into my life. It's not so much healing ministries or big churches or big ministries. It's big people that reveal the glory of God. You take it to heart. Willow Creek Church is associated with the Presbyterian Church in America. Our website is www.willowcreekchurch.org and our phone number is 407-699-82-11.