Here’s Your Sign

No this isn’t the punchline to one of Bill Engvall’s famous “here're your sign” jokes, although those are pretty funny. 

No- this is about God giving me a literal sign the other morning.

There I was sitting at the kitchen table trying to process a situation that we were dealing with. There’s this guy here in Brazil who really took advantage of us a couple years ago. He blatantly lied to us and did some things to us that were really jacked-up. This supposed ‘brother-in-Christ’ took advantage of us and the camp, what he did was just wrong. And the way he did it really hurt us in the process. 

And, because of what he did, we had to wrestle with bitterness for a while (fighting against it) because of his actions. I don’t want to get any more specific than that because I don’t want to ‘out' anyone. But we processed through it and moved on. 

Anyway, he recently contacted me via email asking for my help in a particular situation. My first reaction was "forget it buddy!” Why should I help someone who lied, cheated and did the things to our family that he did? But then The Holy Spirit reminded me that I’m a follower of Jesus and I needed to take the high road and help the best I could. 

So I answered him back and helped him the best way I could. I didn’t even make any snide/witty/sarcastic remarks in my response to him either (although I wanted to). See, after all these years I'm finally starting to learn: )

Then, a few days later, he sent me another message wanting me to go even further with my help to him. Again, my initial response (in my mind) was “this guy can forget it! Is he smoking crack or something!?" Not very christian-like, I know. But I'm just trying to be honest with you. That was my initial response (in my mind) anyway. And I hate that that junk is in me. I really do. And even though it only lasted a few seconds, the fact that it's still an initial response frustrates me. But anyway...

So, there I was, trying to figure out what to do? Do I continue to help this guy? Do I make him sweat a while before I respond? Do I totally ignore him? Do I only partially help him since he treated us so badly? What was I going to do? 

That’s when it happened… MJ was cleaning out from under our bed and found some decorations hidden-away that we had shipped here from the States. One of things she found was a sign. She had no idea that I was wresting with this particular situation either. But she walked out into the kitchen holding this sign and said, “do you think I should hang this up somewhere?” It was all I could do to not bust out laughing. Here’s the actual sign I’m talking about.

Does God have a sense of humour or what? lol! It’s not like He just brought that scripture to my memory (which is what usually happens when He instructs/rebukes/ chastises me), no. He had my wife carry a literal sign out to the kitchen and made me read it! Is that awesome or what? haha!

But, even though I thought it was comical, it was still an instruction to me for this situation. Man, don’t you hate it when that happens?! So that’s what I’m gonna do- act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with my God. Because it’s what He requires of me.

But the reason I’m writing this today isn’t just for me, no. I really believe that there’s someone else who'll read this that’s dealing with something similar and your wondering what to do. Well, here’s your sign…

Love Ya,

Jim