Trust and Obey

“Teach me to do what you want, because you are my God. Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground” ~Psalm 143:10 Many times we pray and ask the Lord what we should do. Sometimes we don't agree with the answer and try to do things our way. I am reminded of a time I did exactly that even though I thought it was for the good. My wife and I sang together before and after we were married. We started with a Radio Shack PA mixer and hand built speaker cabinets. In the late 1970's, we started a gospel group to sing at churches, revivals, and sometimes a complete Sunday evening concert. We started with a Crate 4 channel powered mixer and the PA speakers I had built, We were experiencing several problems with our sound system and frequent feedback noises. I prayed that the Lord would lead us in the decision to buy a better one? The Lord told me if everyone agrees to buy it. It took a vote and rest of the group did not “all” agree. I decided to buy a new sound system on my own and pay for it myself. I purchased a new Peavey sound system including the powered mixer, speakers, stands and new Shure microphones with cables. I was very pleased with the superb sound compared to our previous system. I felt it was a good thing I'd done since it would be used in our service to the Lord and I bought it myself. A few weeks later, I became ill with a stomach virus that left lasting health problems. I spent 11 days in the hospital to find I had a bad case of Colitis....and a long recovery from it. When I was able to resume singing again, the group, after a long break, didn't really want to continue. So remembering the Lords words....I had a new sound system and no one to use it.... I decided to donate this system to a local church who was badly in need of one. Thieves broke into the church one night and stole the entire system. Even thought I tried to do something good with what I had purchased, it was still turned into total ruin. The Church did have insurance so I went along with the pastor to purchase another new sound system which lasted them for over 20 years before needing to upgrade to a newer one. The conclusion is disobeying the Lord's answer, trying to do something good on my own, only to have it thrown to the thieves and wolves. Yes, I can tell you I learned my lesson! When the Lord gives me an answer, it is carried out to the letter! As the old hymn goes, “Trust and obey, for there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”