On a late afternoon when the clouds gather around the peaks and the lightning begins to play its games over the mountain meadows, the high country is no place to be, but it can be spectacular to watch from a safe distance.  At such times the hills can be alive with the sound that isn’t music, but it has a magnificence of its own.”
              –Louis L’Amour  (Passin’ Through)

“Listen to Me, you who know righteousness, You people in whose heart is My law: Do not fear the reproach of men, Nor be afraid of their insults.”
              –Isaiah 51:7 (NKJV)
————————
         “The tragedy is that our eternal welfare depends upon our hearing, and we have trained our ears not to hear.”
                   –A.W. Tozer

    This is my favorite time of the year.  I loved to get out and walk in the woods during the fall season, whether it be hunting or just spending time in God’s great cathedral.  I like to find a place, maybe by a cascading brook, or sit on the edge of a ridge overlooking the country below, or maybe just to sit in a grove of trees.  In all of these places I like to sit and listen.
    Folks don’t listen anymore.  It may be that they just don’t take the time to listen.  It may be that they are so inundated with noise and sounds that they are not able to listen.  Right now, as I right this, I am listening to the leaves rustle as the breeze moves them.  There is a squirrel in the tree and I hear it moving through the branches often stopping to eat the nuts on the dogwood tree.  Then in the midst of it all, the wonder is ruined by the sound of beeping, a truck is beeping and that took my ears away from nature and all I can hear is noise.  Noise of the beeping, noise of the not too distant highway, the noise of man’s progress and technology.
    I used to teach Royal Rangers and also taught an Outdoor Education class.  One of my first days of class was to get the students outside.  They were to sit the whole class period and listen and then record what they heard.  They were to have two columns:  man-made noise and nature.  The first time they really struggled.  First it was hard for them to sit that long, in one place, outside in nature.  Second, they were away from their phones.  They struggled to listen.
    We are very much the same way when it comes to things spiritual and the voice of God.  We struggle to sit in one place to read God’s Word.  We struggle to find a quiet place where we can pray and commune with God.  Jesus often admonished with the following, “he who has an ear let him listen.”  If we take the time, if we can discipline ourselves, we can learn to listen.  The students who were given the assignment to listen struggled, but they began to learn to be still and listen.  By the end of the semester they were able to “hear” the voices of nature.  We can do the same with the Lord.

I just kept hobbling along, never looking back because I knew the sight of how little I’d done would discourage me.  My eyes were on the trail ahead, as they’d always been.”
              –Louis L’Amour  (Passin’ Through)

    “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.”
              –Hebrews 11:8 (NKJV)
——————–
I never laugh or made fun of older people.  Perhaps it was because I was raised by my Grandma and my Aunt.  They were hard workers, in fact, all of my parents and grandparents were.  I remember as they became older they were not quite a spry as they once were.  But they continued to work, in one capacity or another, none of them ever became what you would call bedfast.
    I mentioned the past yesterday, and said how important it was, but that we were not to live in it.  One reason is that when we dwelt in the past we would see and realize how much we didn’t accomplish.  Those dreams–what happened to them?  Were you able to fulfill them or where they like the clouds, only a vapor?  Often looking at the past puts us in a rocking chair, twiddling our thumbs, and living in remorse.
    Look ahead, the goal is still before you.  Heaven awaits, now is not the time to stop and live in the past, but now is the time to continue forward, even if you have to hobble.  The way may be rough, the obstacles many, but a person continued to take a step at a time–steps that are ordered by God, mind you.
    You may have noticed that I used quotations from Louis L’Amour’s book, “Passin’ Through,” the past couple of days.  When I get back to Texas, I’m going to pull it from my bookshelf and read it again.  The title itself presents a lot of truth.  Truly, we are just passin’ through this world.  All of us, pagans and saints, the nonbeliever and the believer will one day come to the end of the road, end of life.  After death comes the judgment–for all.  Nonbelievers will be judged for not accepting Jesus Christ; believers will be judged for their works, how they walked the trail since accepting Jesus.

Remember—the secret is never to forget your hold on the past—your memories—an’ through thinkin’ of them to save your mind an’ apply it to all that faces you out there … if you fight an’ think together like a man meanin’ to repent of his sin—somewhere out there in the loneliness an’ silence you will find God!”
              –Zane Grey  (Wanderer of the Wasteland)

    “Remember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, ‘The Lord your God is giving you rest and is giving you this land.’”
              –Joshua 1:13 (NKJV)
——————————
It has been said that history is what links the past with the present and the present with the future.  It is vital that we remember the past.  Memories, good and bad, are important for they helped mold us.  We are to learn from the past, the lessons are there to make us a better person.  However, there are two things to remember about the past.  First, we should learn from the lessons.  Memories of the past do not do us any good if we don’t learn from them.  Secondly, remember the past, learn from the past, but do not live in the past.  Yesterday is dead and gone, remember, learn and go forward.
    Ravi Zacharias was talking with a student (must have been a Millennial) who said that there is nothing worse than nostalgia.  To which Zacharias answered, “except amnesia.”  One cannot progress without using the past as stepping stones.  I know there are people who do not have any pictures from the past, those who do not care for the old photos, or want to listen to the old stories.  These are doomed to live a discontented life.
    One other thing–to remember how the Lord worked in the past gives us hope for today and for tomorrow.  It is the faithfulness of God and how He fulfills His promises that gives us the assurance for today, and the “blessed hope” that He will return.  God is not slack in fulfilling His promises.  Yea and amen!
——————————-
How does one obtain rest?  Rest only comes by completely work, fulfilling a task, doing one’s duty.  God rested on the seventh day, not the fifth.  His work was complete, as far as creation went, before He rested.  Rest when the job is done, not before or in the midst.  How many times have I seen work only partially complete because the person stopped to rest before completion.

         “The gospel does not command us to do anything in order to obtain life, but it bids us live by that which another has done:  and the knowledge of its life-giving truth is not labor but rest, rest of the soul, rest that is the root of all true labor; for in receiving Christ we do not work in order to rest, but we rest in order to work.”
                   –Horatius Bonar

    Why is rest needed?  Why, dummy, for us to work!  We rest at the end of the day to rejuvenate the body, calm the mind so that tomorrow we can continue on with our duties and responsibilities.  Rest comes after a hard day’s work simply in order for us to be ready and refreshed to work tomorrow.
    Rest is important, but we need to know when and why.  We also know that we need our strength renewed, physical, mental, and spiritual.  We need to learn how to rest in Him.