When it is God's Will....

It is Thursday, March 18th.

For those of you who do not know the Lord, bear with me. It is not my intention to turn this blog into a pulpit that I can sermonize from. I simply need to talk of the next few days as I see them.

For those who may be more lukewarm I hope my message may offer you food for thought and perhaps provide a blessing for you as well. For those who are on fire, I hope to fan the flames.

My last post told of the goodness of the Pastor and the nice people I met at the Litchfield United Methodist Church. Pastor Mike went beyond the call of duty by taking me in, feeding me twice, giving me a tour of the area I was hiking next and paving the way for my time with Pastor Tom of the Homer United Methodist Church. Pastor Mike could not have been more gracious as we shared our thoughts and feelings on several issues. He also was able to put into words what may have motivated me to take on this quest.

I knew for several hours I was going to meet him at his church as I was hiking from Hillsdale to Litchfield. This caused me to have the Lord on my mind a lot more than I normally have lately.

Many of you who know me are aware that I have gone through a rough stretch the last 4years as the company I had worked for went in a new direction and it became apparent that they didn't want me to lead them there. The misery of realizing that, along with the terror of losing my high paying job separated my thoughts from God for a long time.

The last three days have been God filled. I can honestly say that I have communed with the Lord more in the last few days than during the last four years.

On to the quest:

I reached Homer and found the Methodist Church. Pastor Tom showed me where I could set up for the night and than he took me to the Lyon Methodist Church just south of Marshal, Michigan. I was still feeling the spirit from the day before and even though I was on the brink of exhaustion I was looking forward to the evening.

Talk about being blessed.

The Lyon church is a very small but beautiful building. The church was putting on a pot luck dinner and a gospel group called "The St. Joseph River Boys", were putting on a gospel music service. Listening to the old hymns had me laughing, crying and just plain "feeling the Holy Spirit". It reminded me a lot of the original Brighton Nazarene Church when it was still small.

I think everyone in my family has heard me say, "If something happens in a way that is more efficient than anything that you can do and it is beyond reasonable to think that it might be a coincidence than "The Lord" has a hand in it".

This is the series of events that had to happen in order for me to be part of this special service.

1. I had to decide that I wanted to go on a quest.

2. I had to discover the North Country Trail.

3. I had to get in shape. Unbelievably, being an older man, I was able to go from two miles with no pack to 9 miles with a 50 pound pack in just a few weeks.

4. The Michigan weather had to be so nice that I decided to start early.

5. I had to have the strength to walk more miles each day than I had planned.

6. My planned stop in Litchfield was a Bed and Breakfast. It had closed down.

7. The first church Diane called agreed to take me in.

8. I had to walk farther than I ever had in my whole life. And this with a 50 pound pack on my back.

9. The Pastor had to be extremely helpful and pave the way for my next stop at another church.

10. The second church had to have a rare Thursday night potluck and service.

This qualifies as way more efficient and beyond reasonable coincidence. That only leaves me to conclude that "The Lord" is still taking care of me. My wife was picking me up by Marshall on Saturday. We are going to stay the night and I will take her to the Lyon church on Sunday morning. The Lord is good! In my own words I think the quest has turned into a spiritual retreat. A time for personal healing. A time to spend with the Lord. A time to share my thoughts with those that I love. The idea of doing this doesn't seem so crazy now.

The pictures above:


The Lyon Methodist Church

The Homer Methodist Church

Entering Homer

A complex method of tapping the Maple trees