Have you ever caught a glimpse of something and upon closer inspection what you thought you saw at the beginning was something altogether different? That happened to my wife and I one day many years ago as we were driving in our car. At the time, our favorite drive-thru burger joint, and one we would frequent often, was a place called "Whopper Burger." I'm not even sure if they are still around today but at the time there were two or three of them in San Antonio. Well, that one day we spotted out in the distance an orange and white sign for a new establishment that was being built fairly close to our house which at first we thought said "Whoppers To Go." Naturally, we got excited at the thought but upon a closer look we saw that the sign said "Wallpapers To Go." What a letdown that was. The incident reminded me of the story about a lady who spotted an elderly couple one day sharing a burger and fries at a local McDonalds. She saw the gentleman cut the burger in half and hand it to his wife. He sat by her side as she ate the burger and just waited by her side as she was eating. As the observer thought within herself, "What a cute sight that is, that a man would be happy just to watch his wife eat", she saw something she wasn't expecting. When the lady finished the first half of her burger, she took out her dentures and handed them to her husband. He then put them on and ate the other half of the burger. Well, at least they were sharing. Another such incident happened when a pastor made a visit to an elderly church member's home. As he chatted with her he noticed there was a closed dish filled with almonds at the coffee table in front of him. When he told her he loved almonds, she said "Help yourself."
After a while, when he noticed he had eaten more than half of them, he apologized for eating most of her almonds. To that, she replied, "Oh that's okay; I'm already through with them. I just buy them to suck out the chocolate." Life is like that; we can't always go by what we see, especially at first thought or glance. Nevertheless, because we are human, we are fooled time and time again. Satan, being the liar that he is, will whisper in our ears trying to convince us that the trials we are facing are simply too great for us to be able to survive them. The Lord tells us otherwise because He is the Voice of Truth. That is why David could write in Psalm 91:7, "A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you." That is also why Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:7 that "we walk by faith, not by sight." If you see an ominous storm coming up on your horizon, don't despair, because whether you see Him or not, The Lord will be there to either drive it away or to be by your side, should He want you to go through it. One thing is for sure: You will not be alone!
Memory verse for the week: (Psalm 51:6 NLT) “But you desire honesty from the heart, so you can teach me to be wise in my inmost being.”
