Getting My Stories Mixed Up.

I read a story in an old book which goes like this…..

Many years ago a young lad was asked to recount his favourite Bible story. His parents were church workers and the young lad was taken to all the meetings. And he had heard the Bible stories many, many times. When asked to stand up and recount his favourite story he got flustered. But he carried on anyway…..

Once upon a time a man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho. And he fell among the thorns. The thorns grew up and chocked him. And he went on. And didn’t have any money. He went to the Queen of Sheba, and she gave him one thousand talents of money and a hundred changes of raiment. And then he got into a chariot and drove furiously. And when he was driving under a big old Juniper tree, his hair got caught on the limb of the tree. And he hung there many days. And the ravens brought him food to eat and water to drink. Afterward he was hungered and he ate five thousand loaves and two small fishes. One night while he was hanging there asleep his wife Delilah came along and cut off his hair. And he dropped and fell on stony ground. But he got up and went on. And it began to rain. And it rained forty days and forty nights and he hid himself in a cave. He lived on locusts an wild honey. Then he went on till he met a servant who said, “Come take supper at my house.” But he began to make excuses and said, “No, I won’t. I married me a wife and I can’t go!” And the servant went out into the highway and hedges and compelled him to come in. After supper he went on and came to Jericho. And when he got there he looked up and saw Queen Jezebel sitting way up in a high window. And she laughed at him. He said, “Throw her down!” And they threw her down. He said, “Throw her down some more!” And they threw her down seventy times seven. And of the fragments they picked up twelve baskets full. Then he said, “Now. In the resurrection, whose wife is she gonna be?”   (Source – The Sword Of The Lord Scrapbook. Vol 1. Published 1934-Pres).

Many years go I went through this phase of reading missionary books. Autobiographies. I read many of them. I read about Gladys Aylward (A London Sparrow), Irene Webster Smith (Sensei), C.T. Studd (Missionary To China). I read about the John and Charles Wesley who went out to America and returned as failed missionaries. I read about John Knox who went to Switzerland and spent time with Ulrich Zvingli. I read about the life of John Bunyan who spent years in prison just for preaching the Gospel in public. And so many more that I can’t even remember them.

I read loads of books about people who were doing, or had done, things instead of just sitting in a church pew and looking around them.

Now. For a long time I’ve been talking to people and telling them about this guy called Bruce Olsen who went to Laos, and what a long and convoluted journey it was for him to get there. And sometimes God leads us down the wrong path so that we can learn something before He takes us on to where He wants us to be. I used this analogy of Bruce many times.

I was wrong. When I decided to lift those books and read them again I discovered that Bruce didn’t go Laos. You see, Bruce ended up in a different City, in a different country, on a different continent. Bruce went to work with the indigenous peoples of Columbia and Venezuela. Boy, did I get that mixed up. Green rainforests. Indigenous village peoples. You can see how I got my lines crossed.

(cf “As The Rockflower Blooms” by Rosemary A. Watson and “Bruchko” by Bruce Olsen).

The Bible records several instances when God deliberately confused people. He confused the peoples around the Tower of Babel so that they could not understand each other’s language. (Gen ch11 v9). He deliberately confused the Egyptian army when they were chasing the Children of Israel as they raced toward the Red Sea (Exodus ch14 v24).

But that is different to what happened to me. I simply got confused from an overload of information. And that happens to us sometimes. We forget something in our Bible, only to remember it several days after we need it. Or we say “There’s a verse in the Bible that goes something like…….”, and then we paraphrase it into our own words.

Getting things mixed up is quite normal. We just need to remember to take time out and rest. Allow our thoughts to come back into line again. We are not Scribes or Pharisees or Sadducees. We don’t have to memorise everything. We just need to remember one thing – Jesus. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Take time out for Jesus. He Took Time For You.

He took the time to die on the cross. So that all our souls shouldn’t be lost.

So, if you find yourself wondering, then the thing to do.

Is take time out for Jesus. He took time for you.

 

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