Turn - Max Lucado [1]
The verb implies a decision, a redirection. I was going south, now I’ll go north. Rather than drive toward a building, I’ll turn and drive away from it. Turn. We understand the term. But are we willing to apply it?
More times than I care to admit, a scenario something like this has played out in our family car. Denalyn, my wife, says: “Max, you missed the turn.”
My reply: “I don’t think so.”
“I’m looking at the map,” she says.
Silence.
“Let’s ask for directions,” she suggests.
“Are you kidding? Did Columbus ask for directions? Did Lewis and Clark ask for directions? Do I need to ask for directions? I don’t think so.”
“If you don’t need directions, Mr. Navigator, tell me, why are we [select the phrase according to trip]:
in the Everglades instead of Miami?”
headed to Knoxville rather than Atlanta?”
seeing mountains when we should be seeing the beach?”
What response can you give to such a question?
If the terrain tells you you’ve made the wrong turn, it’s time to make a right one. As a country, we’ve been traveling some rough terrain.
And it’s getting rougher.
In one year in America…
Over 957,000 marriages end in divorce.
Over 15,000 people are murdered.
Up to 1,800,000 pregnancies are aborted.
God tied His promises to Solomon (and to us) to four distinct turns:
1. TOWARD GOD’S GLORY.
2. TOWARD GOD IN PRAYER.
3. TOWARD GOD’S WORD.
4. TOWARD GOD IN REPENTANCE.
God offers to heal our land. He tells us what to do. He’s done His part. Now. it’s up to us.
IT’S OUR TURN.
When God says, “Heed My Word,” we need to remember that He has watched countless people walk across this planet. He has watched the pain and trouble that have come from every violation of His commands. How could a loving God do less than warn us? How could He do less than set His protective fences down across the landscape of our lives and urge us to walk safely within them?
—Ron Mehl, Right With God, p. 58
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
(2 Chronicles 7:14)
TURN # 1
A spider dropped a single strand down from the rafter of an old barn and began to weave his web. Days, weeks, and months went by, and the web grew. Its increasingly elaborate maze caught flies, mosquitoes, and other small insects, providing the spider a daily buffet of bugs.
The spider built his web larger and larger until it became the envy of all the other spiders.
One day this productive spider was traveling across his web when he noticed a single strand stretching up into the rafters.
I wonder why this is here? he thought. It doesn’t serve to catch me any dinner, it doesn’t add to my pantry of insects. Concluding that the strand was unnecessary, the spider climbed as high as he could…and severed it. In that moment, the entire web began to fall in upon itself, tumbling to the floor of the barn, taking the spider with it.1
Could we, as a nation, make the same mistake as that foolish spider?
Can a country spin a great web and sever it? Can she grow so successful, so smug, so self-sufficient that she forgets the strong strand that supports her? Could she look from shore to shore, survey her liberty, her strength, and her prosperity and respond, not with gratitude…but arrogance?
Recent actions make us wonder if we are doing just that.
A verbal prayer offered in a school is unconstitutional, even if it is voluntarily participated in. If a student prays over his lunch, he must do so in silence.
Schools resist biblical instruction. Freedom of speech is guaranteed to students, unless the topic is religious. The Ten Commandments cannot be hung on the wall of a classroom.
God’s definition of the family has come under question…even ridicule.
A movement to remove the phrase “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance gains disturbing momentum before being dismissed on a technicality.
“WHY IS THAT THERE?”
Are we