SUCCESS IN LIFE IS GETTING ALONG WITH GOD....2023_12_17_09_49_55

The Cowboy Church holds a morning service with announcements, prayers, and songs. They ask for donations of firewood, cardboard, and paper. The safety team emphasizes the importance of staying down in case of an emergency. They also encourage communication and vigilance for any suspicious activity. They mention membership, baptism, and upcoming meetings. The service ends with singing "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World." Good morning, good morning! Yeah! Welcome everybody to the Cowboy Church. We're glad you're here this morning. We're going to kick this off in a little bit. You know, from 9 o'clock to 10 o'clock, and we're all pretty stuffed. It's awesome. At 11 o'clock we have Cowboys. There's some bars open another 3 or 4 minutes back there. So you can grab a couple of sets, get in there, and get you some good stuff. We'll kick her off in a little bit. Alright! It's time folks. If you need help finding a seat, let me know. I'll get one of our arm pushers to help you. Is there anybody here not ready to pray? Just stand up. Can you hear me back there? You can. Well, good deal. That was a good bunch. I think summer's over though. Alright, let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I just thank you Lord for each one that's here, Father. We ask a blessing for each one, Father. Lord, we've got so much sickness around and injuries and stuff. I just pray you put a healing hand on us and deliver those enslaved to a bondage of some sort, Father. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Some of us have flipped slower that us cripples can get in line before the rest of the birds. We just ask your blessing, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Yeehaw! There must be an announcement. I think he's feeling a little bit better. And I just got words from him that he gets to see the doctor tomorrow. Okay. Bear with me, I left my notes at home. I know. But, anyway, there will be no more, oh, they don't need any more firewood. Thank you to everyone who has donated firewood, but we don't need any more. For Chuckwagon? For Chuckwagon. And I was also told the church doesn't need any more firewood. We do not need any more cardboard or paper at this time. If we run out, we will let you know. Because we don't have any places to stock it. So, don't bring any more. The other thing is, there will be no more mechanical steer roping until January the 8th. And they will start back up at 4 o'clock on January the 8th. And I think that's all I have except the most important one. And that is we are a soft target here at the church. And we, as a safety team, we are no longer referred to as security. We are referred to as a safety team. We have had some training, tactical training, and so we are changing a few of our words. So, if you hear get down! Get down! Get down! Go down as far as you can. Some of you, we realize, cannot get on the floor. But put your head down as far as you can. Kind of like when you're in an airplane and they tell you you're going to crash. Yeah, put your head down. Yes, Ron? It's supposed to be stay down, stay down, stay down. Hear that, stay down. She forgot her notes. Well, and I even had it wrote on here and it says stay down. Because for some of you say get down, get up and dance. And we had a little bit of a discussion about that earlier back by the kitchen. They didn't know whether we should say get down or stay down. And then he said, well, we don't want them to dance, so let's say stay down. Technically, that word is get down. So now we're going to say stay down. And to be very serious, if you do hear stay down, stay down, stay down, do it immediately. And let our safety team take over. Do not engage. If we need help, we will ask for it. The other thing is, if you see something that you are not comfortable with, whether it be in the church or outside in the parking lot, get a hold of someone who has a radio. Similar to this. Because we are in contact with each other. Also, if you're in the parking lot and you need help, honk your horn and stay on your horn until some safety person comes and asks you what you need. Anything else, Ron? That's it for now. I saw Dewey after a while ago. He didn't have a horn. He had a horse. Yeah. Oh, yes, that's the other announcement. We had two greeters today. Wasn't that wonderful? And if we would like to have more greeters, you don't have to have a horse. You can have two legs and stand there. Or you can be on a four-wheeler and sit there. We've got stick horses. Now we have stick horses if you want a stick horse. If you want to just sit there in your car and wave as they come in, that's fine too. But if you would like to volunteer, get a hold of Dewey, and he's out with the horse right now. Get a hold of Dewey and let him know so that he can get you scheduled. I think that's it. You're up, Bonnie. Thank you, Mr. Thank you, thank you. Good morning, everybody. A little chilly this morning? No, it's not. Okay, so if everybody would just be so kind as to turn off your cell phones or silence them so that it's not interrupting the service, we appreciate that. Announcements were handed out this morning. Just check it out and see what's going on in our church here. We don't have the hat here at Cowboy Church. We've got a bird house in the back for tithing and offering. So anything the Lord places on your heart to give, we would appreciate it. Just place it in the bird house back there. We have a white house located out the east door. It's two-holder, but more efficient than one in Washington, D.C. because our flush is. And I'm hoping for a big flush soon. Thank you. Name tags. Sandy's always been so gracious as to offer her services to provide name tags for you, so if you'd like to see Sandy afterwards and get your name tag, she'll be happy to help you. Membership for Cowboy Church, I think we just had a meeting not too long ago, but if you're interested in becoming a member of our church, there's a sign-up sheet in the back. Please write your name down and someone will be in touch with you and we'll get you signed up and a member of our beautiful family here. Baptism is always a wonderful thing as a Christian. It's an outward sign or signal of our faith in Jesus Christ. And so if you have not been baptized, or if you were baptized and you don't remember, get yourself signed up for baptism. It's a wonderful experience. Of course, our fur babies are always welcome. We just ask you to clean up after them and make sure that they're taken care of and look out for the people. Make sure that they're not in the way of getting in the way of people who have a shipping hazard. They're wonderful, but we have to make sure we have the safety. We don't need road bombs out there. The what? Road bombs. Yeah, if we can clean up after the fur babies, that would be great. Zone 4 Neighborhood Watch meeting is scheduled for January 5th. So just a little reminder, that's coming up. If you have not signed up for Neighborhood Watch and you would like to become a member, go ahead and sign up in the back as well. First aid team, I know we said we're going to have a meeting that kind of got postponed. We'll probably be getting that scheduled at the beginning of next year, which is a couple weeks from now. Keep your ears open for any first aid meetings that are coming up. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Do you have any new orders up there? Go ahead. New orders of all ages. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. I put Jesus as my Savior, you take Him too. I put Jesus as my Savior, you take Him too. Way beyond the blue. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, way beyond the blue. If you can't bear the cross, you can't wear the crown. If you can't bear the cross, you can't wear the crown. If you can't bear the cross, you can't wear the crown. Way beyond the blue. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Dear Lord, oh dear Lord, hear and forgive. Way beyond the blue. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. Oh, this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. I did take two orders of all ages. Thank you, Fred. The Ice Age, the Dinosaur Age. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Alright, this is a song we did last week, but everybody knows it. We're gonna call this the Sing-Along. You all know Silent Night, don't you? Oh, yeah. Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright, round yon virgin mother and child. Holy infant so tender and mild, sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night, holy night. Shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar. Heavenly hosts sing alleluia. Christ the Savior is born. Christ the Savior is born. Silent night, holy night. Son of God, love's pure light dreams deep from thy holy face. With the dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus, Lord, at thy birth, Jesus, Lord, at thy birth. Thank you. Joy to the world. Does anybody know that song? Yes. How about a speakable girl? Come on. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare Him room. Let heaven and nature sing. Let heaven and nature sing. Let heaven and nature sing. Joy to the world, the Savior reigns. Let all prepare a song in glory. While fields and floods and hills and plains repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, repeat, repeat, repeat the sounding joy. Joy, I'm a speaker of joy. When no one's following where, no time can tell. Joy, I'm a speaker of joy. He rises in my soul, never lets me go. Joy to the world, the Savior reigns. Let all prepare a song in glory. While fields and floods and plains repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy. Joy to the world, the Savior reigns. Let all prepare a song in glory. While fields and floods and plains repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy. No time can tell. Joy, I'm a speaker of joy. He rises in my soul, never lets me go. Oh. Yeah. Oh. Oh. There's the cowboy man. Yeah. Oh. Oh. Before I, before we get a little rambler rounded up, I found out a secret. I've got an appointment with my bone doctor tomorrow. And I'm sure he'll probably look at me and refer me to somebody else. But I did find out how to get some service. If you walk into that ER and you go, I think that'll happen to me. Immediate service. I got an MRI, I got a, I got C scans, I got, I mean, echocardiogram, all kinds of exercises, you know. Found out that I was having a little numbness here and I was a little tired because I haven't been to bed in six weeks. And my little finger is cold. The rest of it works fine. But it just does what it wants to do. If you sleep sitting at your desk with your head all bent down like this, it does strange things to your fingers and your hands and other places. It's messing up with nerves that was doing everything else. But, I guess it didn't look much different than somebody having a stroke. I wasn't sure myself. But man, I tell you, you get, you get taken care of. No stroke, by the way. No, oh no, no stroke. No, well, nerve pain in my neck. So, anyway, if I can find a doctor that'll look at more than one vertebrae at a time, because they're all specialists, you know, I'm an L5 specialist. I can't look at an L4? No, no, I'm an L5 specialist. Well, what about my little finger? Well, I don't do fingers. You know, oh, what kind of doctor are you? I'm an L5 doctor. And I do have an opening for an appointment for you to come in September 27th of 19, or 10, 10,000, what is it? 10,000, you've got dog hair. Dog hair. 2025, probably. 2024. But I do have, I've got a pinched nerve. You've got a bulge in the ear. It bulges a little. I've got a disc that bulges a little bit. That's the back problem. And that's the back problem. And, yeah, well, it bulges in the right place. You'd be carrying him around, too. Because, other than giving birth, I've never experienced anything that hurts like this. Does anybody know where this year disappeared to? I mean, I, for some time now, I've just had three-day weeks. It goes Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and then it's Saturday, and Sunday, Monday, and, what happens all those days in between? Where do they go? They just disappear. The whole year, oh, yeah, those kids heading out. I did have, such a blessing, but they must have had some kind of security or something at the hospital that, that reports to my son, because, I don't know, sooner hit the door of the hospital there than 20 hours later, my son was here from East Texas, driving. And, it was good to have him with us for a few days. So he gets up yesterday morning and goes home and has supper at home. I'm sure that there's some contrails somewhere across I-40. All right. Stay out. Blue Wranglers, where we at? Giddy up, get going, Miss Kathy's got the deal. Y'all keep Miss Kathy in line over there now. Sit down, Fred. Thank you, Kathy. Yeah, there's Miss Kathy. And, everybody that chips in from time to time and helps with our Little Wranglers is good. They're the future. The church is your Little Wranglers. All right. Guess it's good, huh? Checking on direction and purpose there, isn't it? All right. This morning, you know, the mission of Cowboy Church is for people to learn how to get along with God. And, I learned a long time ago that if you want to have peace and joy in your life and to be able to feel like you have some success in your life, I don't think anybody ever sets out life and says, my goal is to be a failure. You know, it just happens sometimes, you know. Works that way. But, but if you want to have a successful life full of peace and joy, you got to learn how to get along with God. You know, them people are fighting over there in Israel. The Palestinians say that all they want to do is kill all the Jews and have all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. And it's not that big a piece of land, really. The only problem is there's never been any nation of Palestinians and all the land belongs to God and God gave that little chunk to Israel. And, so a lot of those folks aren't really having success in their life because they're dead now. And God only puts up with stuff so far, so long. You know, for Christians, even Christians that have received Jesus as their Savior and trusted God to be your Lord, your Savior, I think if you argue with God enough, if you don't obey Him, if you don't do what you want to do, the Bible says there's a sin unto death. And I studied about that for a long time because I thought, you mean God will kill one of His own kids? And then I got to thinking back, I figured my mom and dad thought about that. And thankfully, I never had any such thoughts like that with my kids. But when Israel, and by Israel, I mean the nation that come from the sons of Jacob, that's who God promised all this land to over there. And it comes to them as an inheritance from the land that God promised Abraham and then went to his son, Jacob. And then from Jacob to his 12 sons. And God had a plan for all of it. He gave it to them. It's the only land in the whole wide world that God gave to a group of people. I mean, like, if you've got a house here, it ain't yours. You got to pay ad valorem tax on it to take it away from you. Right? So belongs to government. We just rent them. I don't like that. There's a group of people trying to make some changes and that's probably been the case for 150 years of getting rid of ad valorem taxes. You can pay for your place. I talked to somebody here a while back that said the taxes on their place they had in California was almost $1,000 a month on their place. And I figured their house must have been a little different than mine. I used to, when I was doing title work for oil companies, I was up in North Dakota and it really opened up my eyes. There was a lot of land, a lot of federal land was homesteaded even up into the early 1900s. And there was people that had been immigrants from Norway and Sweden and Finland and a lot of Denmark, Germany had roughed it out and homesteaded a bunch of that land up there in North Dakota. And then doing the title work I saw where back during the Depression I saw 160 acres of good wheat land up there, good farmland was lost to the county for $12.60 in taxes. They just didn't have the money to pay the taxes on. And there was thousands and thousands of acres up there that was like that that the county took over. We've got land here in this county that people lose to taxes. Every year you see a list that's for sale. You know, tax land for sale. If you want to have a successful life, make good decisions, have peace and joy in your life and share in the blessings that God's got for you, you've got to obey. In the beginning when God created man, he gave man a spirit. So that we have the quality and the ability to have a relationship and fellowship, communicate with the spiritual God. And then he gave man moms and dads so that we could learn how to get along with God. You have a baby, you've got a mom and dad to guide you and direct you and love you and protect you and take care of you. And then to teach you how to go. And what's one of the most obvious things that the devil has attacked in our society is family. You know, he pushed dads out of the family circle and women's lib. And even amongst church goers, Christian church goers, the divorce rate for our bunch ain't no different than the rest of the world in the United States. You know, and somewhere down the line, somebody is wrong. And when we're wrong as God's children, we need to fess up. Because the relationship is not going to change. When we believe and trust him, he puts his DNA in us. DNA of the Holy Spirit. And just like your daddy can't take his DNA back from you, even killing you wouldn't do it, you know. You're still his child. But you might not get along. My dad was pretty efficient in explaining what didn't suit him. And I was a quick study. I was a pretty smart kid. I don't know what happened, but I was a pretty smart kid. And I never got whooped for saying anything twice, not for my daddy. It was thorough. And I learned, in reading the Bible, that it says when the children of Israel, when they were in bondage in Egypt, in slavery, and it was crying unto God, God, how long are we going to be in slavery? When are you going to set us free? When are you going to keep your promise and give us our land free and safe? And they've never had it free and safe. And God's answer was when the cup of the Ammonites, when the cup of iniquity of the Ammonites is full. That was his timekeeping piece, I guess. So I imagined them having a cup and their sins dripping in that cup. And as that cup got full, God said, okay, you're done. That's Old Testament. And we find that they got wiped out. They were done as a nation. And there was a boy in the church in Corinth. And Corinth was a Beverly Hills church. If you found a church in Beverly Hills, it'd be like what church in Corinth was like. And it says they was doing all these things and everything. And this guy had to thank for his stepmother. And I guess she had to thank for him. Because they was having an affair in the church and nobody did anything about it. Just let rotten apple lay there in the middle of the barrel. And God gave the instructions. God gave the instructions. He says, you can't put up with stuff like that. You got to have discipline in the church. And says, throw him out. But it said for the destruction of his flesh. In other words, his body is going to die. Let Satan whoop him and tear him up for his sins. But his soul will be saved. His soul will be saved. He said he was a Christian. You can be a Christian and miss out on the blessings, the protection, the provision, prosperity, all the wonderful things that God has for us. You can be a Christian and miss out on them by disobedience. But a loving father doesn't let his kids just break the law. A loving father sets them on the straight. Makes them go where they're supposed to go. Do what they're supposed to do. And our God's like that too. He gave us examples. He gave us moms and dads. There's some things. We preach prayed up, fessed up, well fed, right? That's the basics of everything. If you got that down and do it, you're going to get along with your Heavenly Father. But to kind of break it down and put it into more lifelike situations, I've got some of them listed here of how to get along with God. In Proverbs 3, 5 it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart lean not unto your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. That's number one. Walk with God. Walk with God. You've got to be in fellowship with him to walk with him and have his power, have his protection, his direction, his blessings. Walk with him. Hedstrom had a horse one time that I called her Hard Mouth. She had a hard mouth, but it didn't mean a thing to her. And sometimes she would go where she wanted to go that she didn't want to go real fast and you might forget to change directions with her. Okay. She'd run me under a tree. It's Nan's horse. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that's the one that run me under a tree. I got on her because she's acting up a little bit and I took her up, run her up more faster and she run me under an oak tree that had stubbed limb down on it and I got 160 stitches in the top of my head. She ducked and I ducked, but I didn't duck enough and limb got me. Well, you'll walk with God. Surrender your will to God. You know, but God, I don't want to be a nurse. I want to be a movie star. Right? I want to be a movie star. Bless me, God. Right? Isn't that what we say what we want to do? I've done that. I've done a lot of that. Surrender your will to God's will. Romans 12 says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies of living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God and that's just your reasonable service to God for his salvation, his provision. That said, yes, Lord. You know, the boy on the on one side of Jesus on the cross, and there Jesus in the middle. One of them was bad-mouthing him and the other one said, you know, this man doesn't deserve what he's getting. We deserve what we're getting. And he looked at Jesus and he said, remember me when you come into your glory. Lord, he called him, Lord. He accepted him for who he is, what he is. And Jesus told him, just before they both died, today you'll be with me in paradise. That boy didn't have time to do a whole lot of good stuff, good things, you know, to earn his way to stand before God and say, God, I did this and I did that and I deserve this and, you know, that's a little arrogant. That's why God had nothing to do with grading your salvation on works. Works all develop pride in people. They just do. And God don't like that, so he got the devil in trouble in the first place. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transferred by the renewing of your mind. You read that one-year Bible, keep reading it all the way through and keep reading it. I guarantee you it'll change you. Keep your mind straight. It'll help you. That you may prove that it's the good and acceptable perfect will of God. You want to know what God wants you to do? Mind him and he'll show you. He'll guide you, he'll direct you. Number three is obey what you already know to be God's will. You know, you don't have to be a cemetery. Cemetery. Cemetery. I said be careful. Seminary. Graduate. To understand God's word. God's word very plainly says that the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth to you. How do you have the Holy Spirit working in your life? You have the Holy Spirit working in your life when you're in fellowship with him. How do you be in fellowship with God? Number one, you have to establish the relationship first. Means you got to be born again. How do you get born again? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That you can't be saved if you ain't born again. Believing and trusting God gets you born again. Obey what you already know to be God's will. Well, if you've ever seen the Ten Commandments and remembered one of them, whichever stands out in your mind, like thou shalt not kill or thou shalt not commit adultery, people know that stuff, you know. But sometimes it don't make any difference. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not have any other gods before him in our life. Obey what you already know to be God's will. In 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3, it says, if we don't obey the things that God has shown to us clearly to be his will, why would we think he would reveal any further information regarding his plan for our lives? That fellow one time come up to me and says, you just preach the same thing over and over. Every week we hear the same thing, you know. You might be a victim of that here. Prayed up, fast up, well fed, right? Are you doing it? It's a long one. We learn the first verse, you know, and do it. Number four, Proverbs chapter 11, verse 14, where there is no counsel, the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety. If you have a relationship with somebody that puts God first in their life, not only talks it, but walks it, and you see it in their life, and you need some advice or need some help or something like that to get on the right track, seek them out. Seek God's people out for advice. Now, dear, I ain't going to help you, you know, or the wiki board or any of that other stuff. I've heard people say, oh, I don't have any talents, I don't have any gifts. Yes, you do. God's not a liar, you know, everybody's got gifts and stuff. And he says when he puts his church together, he puts everything in that church that that church needs, where it's living stones, you know. That doesn't mean that you can't get ahead of it. It means he puts talents in you that you use in the church to help it be a thriving, vibrant body, Christ-living body. God's created you to fulfill a specific role. You've got to play it. How do you know what it is? I've heard some people tell me that I remember when I was young, we had one gal, said her gift was singing and she's always wanted to sing. And old George Thompson, he let her sing. And every time she sang, everybody kind of go, you know, because her melody and tones had absolutely nothing to do with the score of the music. God has created you to fulfill a specific role in this world. There's no one else like you who can achieve completely what God has purposely created you to do. Now, how do I know that? Well, Jeremiah, we'll get to him in just a little bit. We'll talk about him. Each one of you has received a gift. Peter, he talks about it. He says he gave you a gift to minister to the body, to one another. Maybe your gift is he's led you into success in business and you help promote a lot of mission work, a lot of mission stuff for people all over the world. Able to give a lot. Maybe you're able to make pretty tables. That's a gift and that's a blessing to the church. Look at this. They've been here for Christmas. Somebody's put an effort in their neck to do that. One of my gifts for most of my life is that when I went to college, before I went to college, I cleaned the toilets as a female. That's my job. I got my cousin a job. He needed to work. I went to college and I was the janitor in the dorm in college and then God got me trees and I started preaching and pastoring and sure enough, it must have been the pastor's job to clean the toilet the first ones we had. I don't care. But I know there's blessings shining out there, I bet. Pay attention to how God has wired you, what your talent is, because now if you put enough sheet work and you run a screw through your thumb, maybe that's not your talent. I hope healing's been successful there. God's got a job for you. God's got a talent for you in his church to be a blessing to the community around you. You might think that if you straighten the chairs up in the church so that the chairs are straight for the next Sunday or something like that, that's talent. It's a gift from God and it's a gift to the body of Christ. Pay attention to what God's gifts he's given to you. Number six, you need to listen to the Holy Spirit. I've never heard God's voice. It's hard. How do you know the difference in your mind and in your heart that God's speaking to you? Because the devil's voice sounds like the God. You can't tell the difference unless you're well fed. If you're well fed, you've uploaded God's word to your hard drive and when the devil comes in there and says, oh, I want you to do this, I want you to do that, and you think, oh, that's God who wants me to whatever, do something. If it's contrary to God's word, it ain't God. But listen, sometimes the devil can lead you astray even with stuff that is in God's word just to get you off the track. Your gift might be a diesel mechanic and the devil tells you that you're supposed to be a pediatrics nurse because you're like some of the other nurses in there. You've got to pay attention to what God's got for you to do. I, for most of my life, have been a, what's that, a Gideon where God will have something for you to think, well, God wants you to do this. All right, God, I'll tell you what. I'll give you an example. When, early in my ministry I was still driving a school bus and cleaning toilets at the school for a job. I've done lots of stuff to thwart the bad habit of preaching. And we had a youth missionary, Uncle Bob, and he had a dummy called Namus. Namus taught the kids the gospel and it was a very successful ministry. But youth revivals, kids bring pennies and they don't buy much gas, you know, for a love offering. And he'd been on my mind and God told me, send Uncle, send Brother Bob $250. I said, God. I said, you know I don't have $250. I checked the balance and I won't do any good. Send him $250. I said, God, listen, now Uncle Bob's not mentioned in the Bible, but if it's the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning, I'll think about it. Well, when I, I'm not drowsy much. When I wake up, it's like taking an old window shane and you turn it loose and you know, and then I'm up, fired, ready to go. Not as much as I used to be, but it still seems like it. But the next morning I woke up, first thing on my mind, send Uncle Bob a check. Oh, okay. Well, I read the Bible, knew about get in and three times get in, did that. You know, so I won't give it another try because I'm sure God doesn't want me to write a hot check. So, I, next morning I woke up, first thing, send Uncle Bob a check. Oh, God, is there anybody else up there giving directions? Is it, you sure that's you? Next morning, same thing. So I wrote the check, had an envelope, put it in. Went to run my school bus route and put the check in the mail this Friday by then. And, come home after running the school bus and I was ready to be humiliated when that check bounced. Got the mail out of our mailbox and there's a card in there from my Aunt Helen in Illinois. And Aunt Helen had this little note and a check in there for $250. She said, God told me to send this to you. That's all it said. She never did it before. She never did it since. Well, I ought to run right back to town and deposit that check before bank's closed. You know, got that in there and got it in there. But you see, Aunt Helen was obedient to God's word. And, by her faithfulness to God, she let me be faithful without humiliation. You know, to give Uncle Bob, Uncle Bob a check. Amazing thing. Pay attention to how God has you wired. Listen to God's Spirit. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. That's John 10, 27. You've got to listen to your heart. In addition to listening to the Spirit, I also recommend listening to your heart to understand my point here, considering the following passage. This is David talking. Delight yourself also in the Lord. That's Psalm 37. And he shall give you the desires of your heart. Now, when I first read that, I thought about that. And I thought, whoa, the desires of my heart might be contrary to God's word. If you're walking in fellowship with God, your heart's desire is not contrary to God's word. You don't have to worry about it. Don't have time for the mushrooms. But you did get them. I did get them. That's right. Maybe a little bit of the mushrooms. We were praying out by the horse drive We went out to feed the horses one night. We then moved to town because the state shut us down from children's home. We still went out to the farm to feed the horses and talked about things that we missed from Illinois where we grew up. And I said, the only thing... This might be an example of living in Illinois. The only thing I could think of that I missed was the morel mushrooms that come up in the springtime out in the woods in Illinois. And I said, ask God for the desire of your heart. We'd been studying the Bible study and I said, I can't think of anything that I want to do with this. And I said, it sounds kind of silly and we could just pray. And I said, the only thing I missed from up there where we come from, he sent us down here, was the morel mushrooms that we used to get in the springtime. And I knew God was... I figured some folks from up there would freeze some and send me a package of them or something, but out there I expected them the very next day, 24 hours later. There's a place in the crowd where we put the feed buckets down to feed the horses. And you know, they have grass in East Texas. It's that green stuff that actually grows there. And all around us, about a six, eight foot diameter scorched earth place where we burnt trash and rubbished and brushed and stuff, was a burn barrel. And right where the burn barrel had been, totally scorched earth the night before, the next day, we had a five gallon bucket full of morel mushrooms growing right there. And they don't grow in East Texas. You're not going to find them much south of Mason-Dixon Lane. They sure are good. They sure are good. Yes, they are. I had asked the Forest Service people when I get my deer tags, I said, you get morel mushrooms down there? And the Texas Rangers down there said, oh, I don't even know what they are, you know. But one of the boys that was transferred down from Illinois, or from Indiana he was, he said, oh, I don't know what morel mushrooms are. He said, oh, they are like the rest of the mushrooms and no, they don't grow down here. He said, I've looked. Never found anything that don't grow here. But yet, we had, have you ever seen a morel mushroom that big? Whether two or three of them were that big, we filled a five gallon bucket full of morel mushrooms. We used to hunt all day to get a gallon of them for us to eat to the woods in Illinois. Delight yourselves also in the Lord and he shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way unto the Lord. Trust also in him and he'll bring it. He'll make it happen. He'll bring it fast. You take a good look at your circumstances. God often demonstrates his plan for our lives by lining up circumstances in obvious ways. We went down to Mexico 19 years ago. That's 20 years ago. Pretty close. Anyway, I wasn't doing mission work down in East Mexico anymore and I took the time I want to take care of my dad. And he passed and we just wanted to start a new work in Mexico along the other side of Mexico from where we was. We went down there to a town called Los Reyes, Michoacan. Had a typical Catholic church down at one end in the plaza, city square in the middle. We were sitting under the live oak trees there praying and said, we're going to come down here and start a new work. That was my last rodeo. You know. We started a new work. Not long after that I was coming out of what store is that? Target or? Walmart. Walmart. One of those. One of those pocket figures. I was opening the door and I saw the whole Mexican family come out. Moms and grandmas and cousins and aunts and uncles and grandkids. I opened the door and I said, pase por favor. And they said, oh, habla espanol. I said, si, hablo poquito y entiendo nada. They looked at me and were talking about where'd you learn to speak Spanish. I said, well, I've done some missionary work down in Mexico and in a conscious conversation and I said, I'm going to a new area. And the old grandma was talking, where you, you know, where we going? I told her, Los Reyes, Michoacan. And about that time one of the young women that was with them she started paying attention. She wasn't paying no attention for that. She said, Los Reyes, Michoacan. I said, si. And she said, when you come to Los Reyes to start your first church where you sat on the bench under the live oak trees was praying you were facing the building I owned. I owned right across the road there in the square. That's where my beauty shop is. You come there and start your church. Oh, man, God's right on it. Confirmation. Government wouldn't let me have an extended residence, non-residency permit. I had caused some trouble down there once. And, I didn't like them killing our people and making them mad. But, money fell through and everything. I'd been out here and I spent nine weeks working for the church over in Las Vegas Cowboy Church. Anyway, I've been here ever since. Them churches out here. That's where we go. Yeah. Where are you? Take a look at the service after. God often clearly demonstrates his plan for our lives by lining up circumstances in obvious ways. Well, it just looked like everything was just perfect. You know, go down there and then we'll kick her off, got a place to meet to start with and everything. And, um, bam, doors closed. But, I'd learned a long time ago, you don't kick doors. And, I went back home and it wasn't long before the church over in Vegas called me and said, our preacher left. And, we want you to come out and be our pastor. I said, no, I'm from Mexico. But, I'll come out and help you find a preacher. And, so here I am. Take a look at your circumstances. Well, he was doing his missionary journey going through, um, Asia, Asia Minor, where all the places are over there. And, he was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. Asia Minor didn't want him in there. Every time, you know, the door was closed they'd shoot at him or whatever. They'd shoot at him or whatever. They'd shoot at him or whatever. 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