BBD 01.21.04 Read The Manual
Posted by: wrather <wrather@...>
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The Burning Bush Devotional
(Over 10,000 subscribers in 75 countries)
01.21.04
Read the Manual
Today’s devotional was written by my son, Clark Wrather, who is the pastor
of the First Baptist Church of Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Clark may be contacted
at fbcbb@pine-net.com.
Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God,
command that these stones become bread." But He answered and said, "It is
written, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God."' - Matthew 4:3-4.
Just a few weeks ago around Thanksgiving, my family traveled to Western
Oklahoma for Thanksgiving. If you’ve never been there, imagine a place with
very few trees and so flat that you can see for miles. It has a sort of
rough beauty that is only spoiled by the constant blowing of the wind. It is
always windy in Western Oklahoma.
On our way out there, we stopped to fill up with gas on the turnpike. It was
the start of a holiday weekend and the place was full of people traveling
and vehicles filling up. While the gas was flowing into my car, I went back
and opened the driver’s side front door. This was a big mistake for some
reason.
We’ve only had our mini-van a few months. When I opened the door, it set off
the factory installed car alarm. I didn’t even know that it had factory
installed car alarm, but I do now. The horn started honking with a shrill
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! It would BEEP every couple of seconds. In the
interval between beeps, every light on the car would flash on and then off.
It was quite a spectacle. Imagine my surprise; I didn’t even know my van
could do that. In just a few moments, my wonder turned into nervous alarm,
when it hit me that not only did I not know about the car alarm, but I had
no idea how to turn it off. Imagine lights flashing on and off and the
shrill honking of a crazed mini-van. In the middle of it all, picture two
frantic people desperately searching the pages of the owner’s manual to find
out how in the world to shut it off. Libby eventually found what to do and
we shut the awful thing off.
I had owned that van for a few months and hadn’t cared about reading the
owner’s manual at all. Suddenly, I had a good reason to do so. I don’t know
how many people have dusty Bibles at home that they never read. I do know
that when your life gets turned upside down and you have a major crisis,
that Bible is usually taken down, opened up and desperately read and
searched for answers. You might try reading it before the crisis, so you’ll
be prepared and know what to do. I wish I had read the owner’s manual for my
van, before it went berserk.
Copyright © 2004. Ed Wrather. Permission is given for use of the devotionals
on a non-profit basis with source credited.
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