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Road Signs

            Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

          Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” (I Samuel 7:12)

            I didn’t think that there was more to say about this topic, until I read through a list of things “Boomers” should stop doing. One of them was “overdecorating for the holidays.” My problem is that I don’t celebrate holidays. I pay attention to the calendar to some extent, but I don’t live seasonally. I don’t have ways in which I recognize the road signs of life. There are people who live paycheck to paycheck, and we don’t tend to see that as a positive thing, but they’re little markers. God got them that far.

          For us, the point may not be something as clear as a paycheck. It could be a seemingly unimportant change in our behavior. We didn’t lie, we did not give into a temptation (if only for ten seconds longer than we did the time before.) You read something that suddenly made sense, even though it didn’t make sense the four times you read it before that. One of mine at least used to be a response of “No, no, no, no, no, no, no… And with that I challenge you to pray about what yours are.

          The other challenge is one I usually issue later in the  year: journaling and then reading your journals a few years down the line. If you find a road sign in your journaling, highlight it.

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