Psalm 121Â I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
2 My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
3Â He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
4Â Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
6Â The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.
8 The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.
Soon after I was “Born Again with God’s Spirit,” one of the amazing things God changed in me was my taste in music. Just before asking Jesus into my heart and life I had joined a cassette tape club that gave about 20 artists albums for a really low price. I was into country and classic rock. My sister gave me a couple Christian cassettes but they just wasn’t my style. But God had other plans for me. In the first full gospel service I ever attended my taste in music changed. During worship and praise I felt a warm feeling on my left ear and looked behind me… nothing there. I went back to enjoying the worship and praise, we did have that at our Catholic services we called the “guitar mass.” Then the warm feeling on my left ear again, I turned around ……odd, but nothing there so I turned and faced the worship service and nothing else happened until I got in my truck to drive home. All of a sudden I thought of trying the Christian cassette my sister gave me and it was wonderful, beautiful and I cried my eyes out on the hour or so drive home. Then I started buying Christian music. The WARFARE cassette was one of my first.
That year on the opening day of the Mississippi shrimping at about 3pm one of my outriggers broke and folded in half. I was about an hour from a new shrimp and ice dock I had started dealing with on the beach in Biloxi. That was before the casinos took over. After I managed to get the broken outrigger secured on the boat and everything else loaded I headed to the shrimp dock. I was 150 miles from home, without my tools, welding machine, cutting torch and going to an almost strangers dock in need of whatever help I could get.
On the hour drive there in my shrimp boat the Psalm 121 song was in my mouth and blasting away through my speakers, over and over singing, “I lift my eyes to the hills, where does my help come form. My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” A shrimp boat with a broken outrigger sticks out like a sore thumb so when I got docked Henry, the Vietnamese owner came to my boat to greet me. I had 5 baskets of unsorted shrimp on deck that needed attention, that was priority #1. Henry told me he would send his nephew to give me a hand cleaning and icing down my shrimp. Without me asking for anything Henry told me he had a welding machine, cutting torch, pipe and welding rods that I could use to fix my outrigger. Henry added, “so you can get repaired and be back out shrimping again in the morning.” Henry said Yun, his nephew would stay with me and help me until the work was done.
About 8pm Henry’s wife came with two platelunch’s from the restaurant that was next door on the beach, ribeyes, baked potato and salad. Yun did stay and helped me until about midnight when we finished up and refused the 100 dollar bill I tried to get him to take. He said Uncle Henry wouldn’t want me to do that. That’s Yun in the red hat and his friend Fong in the doorway of my shrimp boat when I came in to their dock another time that summer.
God through the help of an almost total strangers found a way to meet my need that day and many others since then. The most amazing part of that day as I have alway said and believed is that Henry and Yun did more for me, a stranger, than what I would have expected to get from shrimp docks that I sold to for 15 years regularly.
In my last post, “For Christ’s Sake Part 2” I mentioned that when my previous job was about to go under because of a decline in the gulf coast oil industry, I was the last of dozens of boat captains they employed. Without looking, the job I have been on for over 8 years found me when someone thought to call me and see if I would be interested in running a crew boat there.
Our company has been up for sale for almost a year now. A buyer was supposed to close the deal since February but delay after delay has left us all wondering if it would ever happen. Yesterday we had meetings at our local corporate office. I was scheduled for the first because I was scheduled to start this hitch of 14 nights last night. I was told the new owners were taking control of the company effective yesterday and 3 positions were being eliminated, my job was one of them. Isn’t it “odd” that I spoke of this in the blog post Sunday night, just a few days ago. Coincidence is NOT a kosher word or thought in Hebrew. Everything is “a happening of God.”
This event, as you might guess caught my wife and I off guard but as I told her, “it didn’t surprise Father God.” I do have somewhat of a concern as I look and wonder what the future holds but it’s not a concern of the future. My main concern is that I wait on God to understand what it is that He has planned for our future and my employment. I REALLY don’t want to miss God’s plan for this season of life.
I know without a doubt that before becoming a “Born Again with God’s Spirit” Christian He was watching out for me, providing for me and supplying my family and I with our every need. I just wasn’t aware of it, trusting in it or proclaiming it in faith.
When God had Jeremiah relay that verse to the captives of Israel that had been hauled away to Babylon, He was expressing His great Love and Desire to Do Good for and to them once they had been chastised for their sins and rebellion. There is a peace you can have with God when you live a life desiring to please God and seek Him with all your heart. Satan isn’t whispering in my ear any reasons I deserve God’s chastisement. I can say verse 28 with confidence,
Romans 8:24-25, 28 NKJV  24 For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. 28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Yesterday’s Tecarta Bible verse I read every day was from Romans 8 too, Tecarta July 2, 2019
Romans 8:31 KJV
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
http://tbibl.es/8fO5
And from MyDaiylyBible app yesterday,
MyDaily Bible App July 2, 2019
1 Peter 4:12-13
” Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.” (1 Peter 4:12-13 NKJV)
#Bible https://www.mydailybible.org/dv/nkjv/2019-07-02.htm
There Are NO Coincidences With God. As Bishop Drew says, “when the out of ordinary happens, Look for God!!”
P.S. I wrote this blog entry early on a Wednesday morning. Tonight at Wednesday night service our last Praise and Worship song we sung was “Way Maker.” Our Heavenly Father, Jesus – His Christ and the Holy Spirit is (singular) our Waymaker for every issue of life, even those we are never made aware of. A chorus repeated in “Waymaker” addresses the title and point of this post, God doesn’t get tired or weary, the Holy Trinity of God NEVER Sleeps.
- “Even when I don’t see it, You’re working
- Even when I can’t feel it, You’re working
- You never stop, You never stop working
- You never stop, You never stop working”
On January 6th of this year I put together some pics of a friends shrimp boat, the “Waymaker,” with our Faith Cathedral choir and congregation singing “Waymaker.” During my 30 years as a commercial shrimper we were very close buddies, often working together to find shrimp and deal with the ups and downs of working on the waters as fishermen. Countless meals were shared together at the end of long hours of none stop shrimping. I owned my shrimp boat for 30 years but James started out being the captain of other peoples shrimp boats, running them. James became a committed Christian long before I did and when he bought his own shrimp boat he named it “Waymaker.” If you watch the video I made, the verses from Psalm 139:7-10 were on a little card I found in a Christian bookstore that was made for my name “Tony.” The picture of the Waymaker high and dry on a sandy beach is one of the “ups and downs” fishermen have to deal with. The list of issues that fishermen learn to address is limitless. The picture of the Waymaker decorated in flags is from the annual “Blessing of the Fleet” that was done every year as the opening of the spring shrimp season approached. A Catholic priest got on the lead boat on the bayouside in front of the church then as it proceeded “down the bayou” the priest would bless the boats docked along the bayouside as they passed each one. Once the lead boat and the other boats following the procession went pass, the last boat blessed would join the procession going “down the bayou.” The route of the procession continued until it got to Lake Boudreaux where the parade of brightly decorated boats would anchor out on the lake for the day and enjoy cajun food and music.
Below is a “video postcard” of a little of what the “Blessing of the Shrimp Fleet” in Chauvin Louisiana and many other fishing communities along the Gulf coast is like. The main purpose was to seek God’s blessing and protection during the fishing seasons, spring and fall for that year.
http://ladigitalmedia.org/video_v2/asset-detail/LSWI-3549-Postcard
In The Word 
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