“Be still, and know that I am God!” Psalm 46:10

As a teen, a rock song made the lyrics popular, “Momma said they’d be days like this, my momma said.” Maybe the following story will remind you of a few of those days.

A pastor was scheduled to preach his first Sunday at a new church. He had not had time to move his family to the new town, so he spent the first night in town in a motel with his wife and kids still back at the old house making final arrangements for the move. He was running late because the alarm had not gone off. In a hurry, he cut himself while shaving and bled a lot. Then his shirt wasn’t ironed properly and no iron to be found. When he was leaving the motel he noticed a flat tire!

Really disgusted and mad, he quickly changed the tire, ran back to his room and washed up again. He finally got underway, taking off from the parking lot squealing his tires and put the pedal to the floor. Racing through town, he ran a stop sign only to be pulled over by a policeman that was watching the intersection and he immediately heard the scream of the siren and saw the flashing red lights.

Really irritated, he pulled over, jumped out of the car and immediately begin explaining, almost shouting, “Well, go ahead an give me a ticket.  Everything else has gone wrong today!” The policeman quietly began his conversation with the minister by saying, “Sir, I understand your dilemma. I used to have days like that before I became a Christian.”

Hearing what he needed to hear, the pastor apologized, asked for forgiveness, and went his way toward the church, this time praying for strength and discipline to correct a faulty attitude. From time to time we need to be reminded, there will be days like that. How we respond makes the difference.

No wonder the psalmist encourages us to just be still (calm) and know God is at work while listening for His instructions and following His guidance.

Bro Larry