Quote from Forum Archives on June 3, 2009, 11:43 am

Posted by: wrather <wrather@...>

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The Burning Bush Devotional

Welcome to the 596 new subscribers since January 1, 2009!!

06.03.09

When the Wheels Fall Off

For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that
we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Now
may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one
another, according to Christ Jesus. - Romans 15:4-5.

A car in Switzerland literally had its wheels come off right in the middle
of the road. Those traveling in the car had stopped a short time before and
changed the tires replacing the winter tires with some summer tires. This is
often necessary in Switzerland where there is so much snow in the
wintertime. However, they used the wrong wheel nuts on the summer tires.
Thankfully, no one was hurt in the incident.

"When the wheels fall off" is a proverbial saying that has its roots back to
the time of horse drawn wagons. There have been songs written about it and
most of us know that it basically means something bad. Without your wheels,
your forward motion comes to a sudden, complete, and shocking halt. I've
lost a wheel off of the trailer of a truck that I was driving, but we never
found it. I was once following a truck when it lost one of the wheels, and
it caused the car immediately behind it to go off the roadway and flip
violently over and over several times. But I have never actually heard of a
vehicle literally losing all four of the wheels at the same time!

In life, it sometimes happens that our wheels fall off and everything that
we were doing comes to a sudden screeching violent stop. I have had my
wheels fall off in life, and it has never been a pleasant experience. My
wheels fell off when my wife left me for a week early in our marriage. My
wheels fell off whenever I was laid off from a job, and when the business I
was operating in the oilfield no longer had any customers because most of
them went out of business or were bankrupt. My wheels fell off when I
realized my income was far less than the bills that I had to pay. My wheels
fell off when our second son was born with Down Syndrome and when sometimes
our "perfect" older son would have problems. My wheels fell off too when I
was hospitalized in 2003.

My wheel losing experience pales in comparison to what some have had. I have
had the unpleasant experience while I was a parole officer of seeing broken
people come into my office and share the details, of how they messed up
their lives through criminal activity. I have had the unpleasant experience
of arresting people at their place of employment because they had written a
bad check. Not something that I wanted to do, but I was ordered to do so.
But even those kinds of things pales in comparison to having a wife, or
husband, or child to lose their life through illness, or because of an
accident, or in some other way.

What do you do when your wheels come off? Where do you turn, where do you
go, where do you find help? The apostle Paul gives us some direction as he
tells us how to find patience and comfort. Where do we find the patience to
continue to live life during those very difficult times when our wheels have
come off? How do we find any relief, any comfort? Through the Scriptures,
through the Bible, Paul says there we find patience and comfort from the God
of patience and comfort. If we want patience and comfort, we need to go to
the source and that source is God. God is the One who has picked me up, put
me back together, and got me going again every time that my wheels have come
off. He will do the same for you, if you will let Him.

Copyright © 2009. Ed Wrather. Permission is given for use of the devotionals
on a non-profit basis with source credited. The Burning Bush website has
been online since January 31, 1998. On June 8, 1998 the email version of the
Burning Bush Devotional was first sent.

Prayer Requests: Please pray for Malachi, Cody, and Mica who are young boys
with cancer. Malachi is very ill and in much pain. He is paralyzed on one
side because of a tumor pressing on his brain. Many prayer needs are posted
at the Burning Bush website on the Prayer Request page. You can also post
your prayer requests there and they will be forwarded to the Burning Bush
Prayer Group (Of course, I am always in need of prayer - please pray for
me.).

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