The Potato Peeler

         I was peeling potatoes at my Mom and Dad's house one day using the modern day potato peeler. When I came to the dimple in the potato, I just kept peeling on it until it was smooth. My Dad remarked, “Do you know what the end of the potato peeler is for? It's to take the dimple out without wasting the potato around it.” Both Mom and Dad had lived in and came out of the depression where you didn't waste anything including rubber bands, paper clips, string of all sizes and colors, feed sacks and potatoes. It was especially true for potatoes as it was a large part of the meal during those days. Once you go through something like that, you don't forget it. We should learn the lessons that were taught in history as they might just be important for us someday. Romans 15:4 says, “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.”

          Many regard this passage as speaking not only of the 69^th Psalm but also the entire Old Testament. People sometime disregard the lessons of the Old Testament thinking that they are not applicable in the time in which we live but they are. History does repeat itself in many ways and does it quite often. We should learn the lessons of the Israelites as we watch their behavior as they leave slavery and enter into freedom, but in the wilderness. They soon found out that they did not trust God to get them through that ordeal and were more inclined to accept their own understanding of things and therefore disregard what God had said. It resulted in a generation dying off in the wilderness as they wandered around for forty years. They had seen God's hand over them from the ten plagues to the crossing of the Red Sea to the supplying of water and food including meat and clothes that did not wear our yet they were prone to grumbling. We might be quick to say, “Shame on them!” but the manner of the Israelites is quite often duplicated in our own lives in our own time. We are quite often very ready to shake out fist at God and cry out, “Why have you let this happen?” Countless examples are forever before us in personal disasters, sickness, disease, death and famine and we still don't get the picture of what God is doing in our lives today. There are plenty of positive examples in the Bible of people who put their trust in God despite the circumstances around them. It might be found in the example of the widow who baked her last piece of bread for a prophet or for the priest who set his foot down on the water while carrying the Ark of the Covenant. It might be found in the life of the Philippian Jailer or the Ethiopian Eunuch or in the lunch that was divinely provided with about 13,000 other people. It might be found in the disciple that went to the aid of blind Saul to touch his eyes that he might see again. We are living in perilous times as even Paul reminded Timothy in Second Timothy 3:1-5. Out attitude should be one of expectancy as to how God is going to get the job done rather than ignoring Him altogether. There will come a time when the trumpet will sound and the church will be called home. Look for it as it might be closer than any of us think. At least, it is one day closer than it was yesterday. Praise God that He is still working in all of our lives.