PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

January 22, 2025

HOW MANY FINGERS?

The first Sunday of the year Diane and I worshiped at the church in which she grew up and the one in which we were married.  The first hymn of the morning was “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks.”  Since there were no verses listed in the bulletin, I assumed we were going to sing all five.

I was doing fine until the third time through the song.  I realized after the first line that I was on the third verse and everyone else was on the fourth.  Had I missed something?

The second hymn was “The First Noel.”  This time I was little more cautious.  After singing the first two verses, I noticed that the song leader raised five fingers.  Could it be that we were now going to sing the fifth verse?  Yep!

In talking of my experience with other persons the practice of the song leader indicating with his fingers what verse is to be sung next is somewhat common.  I had failed to read the signal because I had not been looking for it.

Since the first of the year there have been signs hanging from the ceiling at LifePlex that contain clouds and the words “set,” “achieve,” and “believe.”  At first all of the clouds were blank.  Gradually, they began to have various personal goals for 2012.

One Saturday a friend of mine asked how they get the information on the signs.  Did they climb a ladder and carefully print the information or did they take them down to do?  We left without coming to any conclusion.

When I asked a staff member the following Monday how the information was transferred to the sign, she took a look and said, “Simple, they write it on another cloud and paste the new one over the old one.”   My friend and I had not looked enough at the signs to see that very often the new ones did not fit exactly over the old ones.

The Bible teaches that it is a wise person who can read the signs of the time.  A prophet is one who can accurately ascertain what is taking place in his generation.  To be able to read the signs of the time we need to be careful observers and sometimes be prepared to think outside our box.

Ed was a member of one of the churches I served who was known to have done well in the stock market. One day when I was visiting with him I asked him his investing philosophy.  Ed said it was simple, he just looked around to what people were buying and he bought stock in that field.

Ed noticed that a lot of people, especially youth, were involved in sports.  They all needed shoes.  So he bought shares of Nike when they were relatively low.  Needless to say over the years his investment did rather well.

Ed was a pharmacist.  In looking to the future he came to the conclusion that if business districts in small town were to survive with the rise of malls and super stores, they would need to have off street parking.  Because of his effort to secure such parking, the business district where his pharmacy was located was able to successfully compete with the changing commercial climate.

We live in an ever changing world where it is necessary to be able to read the signs of the time.  This involves being on the watch for new signals which may give an indication of future trends and to carefully look at the signs we do see.

(Originally published January 22, 2012.  Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmail.com.)