February 28, 2010
Sermon by Pastor Jeffrey Bell
Providence Presbyterian Church

"Look To The Stars"
Genesis 12: 5 - 12, 17-18

Does God speak to people?  I ask because I listen to the stories of others who have heard God speak to them, and it sure makes me wonder.

Bob Haifley spent 2,500 work hours over five years gluing together 65,000 toothpicks in order to shape them into a life-sized likeness of Jesus. When he was finished, he hung it from a wire in his garage against a black backdrop and illuminated it with a spotlight. When asked why Haifley, a humble water-department supervisor and nonartist, started gluing toothpicks together to build this life-sized Jesus, he responded by saying: “God told me to do it.”

According to Haifley, God spoke to him one day while he was driving his pickup. Here is what God wanted him to do build a life-sized statue of Jesus with toothpicks. God even showed him how to do the spiky hair on his toothpick masterpiece.  1

He may be right, but I confess that I worry when people say, “God told me to do such and such.”  There are too many people who have done horrible things because, allegedly, God told them to.

On August 3, 1996, Melvin Hitchens sat on his front porch reading his Bible. Then this sixty-year-old New Orleans resident went into his house and retrieved a .45 caliber hand gun, went back outside, and shot his neighbors!

He killed Don na as she swept her sidewalk; he injured Darryl while he was mowing the lawn. Family members and neighborhood residents testified that Hitchens had a running feud with his neighbors over the care of their yards and the cleanliness of the gutters. No one, however, had an explanation how a man could put down his Bible, and commit such a violent act!  2

It’s like a tee‑shirt you may have seen that reads, “You’re just jealous because the voices only talk to me . . .”  It worries me when someone says, “God spoke to me and told me to do such-and-such . . .” Still the question remains, does God speak to people? The answer is yes, occasionally.

Author Charlie Shedd once told about a time when God spoke to him. One evening Shedd drove into his garage at suppertime, turned off the automobile ignition but found that his fingers just wouldn’t let go of the keys. It was like they were frozen. “What’s going on here?” he asked out loud.

An inner voice seemed to say to him, “Go see Roy .” Charlie Shedd believed it was the voice of God or, at least, the voice of an angel in God’s behalf.  “But it’s suppertime,” Shedd protested. And the mysterious voice seemed to say, “Supper can wait, Roy can’t. Go.”

Shedd’s thoughts ran rampant, but he switched on the ignition and went.

“But why?” He questioned in his heart. “Why see Roy ?” He’d just seen Roy in church just yesterday, and he seemed fine.

Shedd drove to Roy ’s house less than a mile away, where he found Roy on the floor, calling for help. Roy had been six miles away from his home, tripped over a stump, fell, broke his glasses and cut his face. Shedd wondered how the elderly man had even made it home based on the condition he was in. 

Later, Roy thanked him for coming, and then asked, “How’d you know I needed you?” Charlie answered, “I think it was an angel, Roy.” To which Roy promptly responded, “Makes sense. I was lying there on the floor, praying you’d come."  3

Does God speak to people?  The answer is “yes”. God spoke to a man named Abram.  In Genesis we read that God took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars if indeed you can count them.” Then God said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Then the writer of Genesis adds these words, “Abram believed the Lord, and God credited it to him as righteousness.”

“Look up at the heavens and count the stars . . .” Could God be speaking those words to you and me this day? Could God be saying, for example, count your opportunities and not your obstacles? You and I encounter many roadblocks in our daily lives. Some of them are tiny irritant.  Some of them may loom quite large.

Economists point to improvements in our economy over the past year, but still many people are struggling. Many of our young people with diploma in hand have had difficulty finding work. War still claims many young lives and separates many families. Many small businesses have failed.

Some have said that inflation is not yet a problem; still, living day to day seems to be increasingly expensive. Some of us are dealing with issues relating to our health or with aging. If you and I were to focus on the obstacles around us we’d want to grab a security blanket, sit in a corner with our thumb in our mouth, and not move.

Linus and Charlie Brown are walking in the woods, and Linus poses this question: “If you have some problem in your life, do you believe you should try to solve it right away or think about it for awhile?”

As they sit down by a log, Charlie Brown responds, “Oh, think about it. By all means, I believe you should think about it for awhile.”

When they start walking again, the puzzled Linus asks: “To give yourself time to do the right thing about the problem?”

Charlie Brown explains, “No. To give it time to go away."  4

That’s one way to deal with problems. But what if they don’t go away? You could be sitting there with your blanket for a long, long time. I’ve often wondered if some of the things we see as obstacles are not really opportunities in disguise?

For instance, officials in Manila decided they were going to reduce the number of disease‑carrying insects in the city. They offered a bounty of 1.5 pesos (about 6 cents in U.S. dollars) for every 10 cockroaches turned in. This gave rise to a booming industry in the Philippines : roach farming.  5

Enterprising people started raising roaches in order to turn them in for cash! They turned an obstacle into an opportunity.  “Look up at the heavens and count the stars . . .” We need to count our opportunities, not our obstacles.

I’ve also wondered if God could be saying, “Look for blessings in your burdens.” Sometimes God places blessings in the most unlikely places.

Ronald Mandile of Brooklyn , NY took his family to their favorite store to get what he calls humongous ice cream cones for a really cheap price. They all placed their order; four-year-old, Heather, was last. She ordered a cherry cone. The clerk put two big scoops of cherry ice cream on a cone.

Suddenly Heather realized that she had made a mistake and really wanted a strawberry cone. Since the clerk had already made the cherry cone, Ronald told Heather that she had to eat cherry. He also reminded her that cherry and strawberry tasted pretty much the same.

Well, this four-year-old thought differently. She refused the cherry cone and began to cry, telling him that she didn’t want it. Some of you have been there with a four-year-old, haven’t you?

Her older sister offered Heather her strawberry cone, but Heather wouldn’t take that either. Her father told her that if she wouldn’t eat that cherry cone she wouldn’t get any ice cream at all and her dad would eat her cone as well as his own. Heather still refused, so Ronald was stuck with two humongous ice cream cones and a daughter who was whining and upset.

On the way to the car, he told her that she was now going to get a spanking. Both of them were frustrated with each other and they were making a bigger deal of it than was necessary. “Thank God for my wife,” says Ronald. She was able to calm Heather and her husband down, and negotiate a new cone for Heather.

Ronald says he has reflected on this incident many times and has learned some interesting things from it. “How many times,” he asks, “has God wanted to bless me and I refused because it was the wrong flavor. I insisted on having it my way only to lose the blessing totally.” Ronald Mandile is right. Sometimes God places blessings in the most unlikely places.

 “Look up at the heavens and count the stars . . .” Count your opportunities, not your obstacles. Look for the blessings hidden in your burdens.  And lastly, God may be saying to us, “Look to your Maker who created you and not to the mess you created.”

Abraham was confronted many times by challenges in life.  We all are. The only time Abraham was really in distress, though, was during those times when he forgot the covenant God had made with him. As long as he remembered that covenant, he could handle anything life threw at him. And so can we.

Richard Pryor was, at one time, the biggest name in stand-up comedy during the 1970s, earning Grammy Awards for his comedy albums. He appeared in almost 40 films and was part of the team that created the script for the Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.”

Despite all his achievements, Pryor is often remembered for seriously burning over half his body while freebasing cocaine. When he had recovered sufficiently from his injuries, he appeared on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.”  In his conversation with Carson , he said he learned that when you’re seriously ill, money isn’t that important. He also said, “All I could think of was to call on God. I didn’t call the Bank of America once!"  6

He looked to the Master, not to the mess. Life has many challenges, but if we stay focused on our covenant relationship with God, in the end, we’ll be fine.