Have you ever cried out to the Lord, “Please Lord just tell me where you are taking me?” Most all of us on this walk have cried out to give us just a glimpse into when the next door will open for us, and what might be behind that door.

Saul had the same feeling when he called for the witch to interpret his dream.  That didn't work so well for him.  There is something in our flesh that hungers to know the future, to answer what will today and tomorrow hold for me?

Makes me wonder how many peoples lives have been altered by taking into their souls what they perceived as truth from these people and from reading their own horoscopes. As humans we want to know everything, and right now wouldn't be too soon, and tomorrow night will defiantly be too late.

Astrology is a false belief that wisdom comes from the stars. Our wisdom comes from God alone, James 1:5. God goes so far as to list astrologers as those who will share a part in being burned to stubble in Isaiah 47, God forbade the Israelite's to worship the “host of heaven” in Deuteronomy 4 and astrology is forbidden by God in Deuteronomy 18.

Do you know researchers have found that if the star signs on a horoscope are removed people are unable to identify which paragraph belongs to their own sign, but if the signs are included they will believe their own star reading to be the most accurate. Man we haven't changed much since the beginning of time. It seems the easiest thing in the world for the flesh to believe is a lie.

From Old Testament to New we are told over and over repeatedly to flee from things like this for so many reasons we ourselves might know but for many I don't think we can begin to truly imagine.

Only God knows all and if He says stay away, it is in our best interest physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually to heed His warning.

He is the ultimate authority on the future and He wants His children to look to Him for all their needs. “I made you and I will take care of you” Isaiah 46:3-4. When we turn away from God and seek answers through other means, He gets mad. Yep, our God of love can get VERY mad, I know we don't like to talk about that, but it is truth, read it.. it's all over in the Word.

King Manasseh turned, it says... “Manasseh...practiced sorcery and divination, and he consulted mediums and psychics. He did much that was evil in the Lord's sight, arousing His anger.” 2 Kings 21:6.

And don't think you can outsmart the enemy by saying, “I don't believe it I read it just for fun.” See the enemy's been here since day one, he knows the Bible more than we every will, he also knows human nature more than we can understand. And he is a legalist, he knows he is allowed to do whatever he will IF we open doors we aren't suppose to that invite him in.

Yep, we invite him right in to sup with us.

Occult practices, not limited to but including astrology, engage demons who are in opposition to the only real God. The demons' leader is a liar. “He has always been a murderer and a liar. There is nothing truthful about him.... He is the father of all lies.” John 8:44 and his strategy is to deceive, “But now I fear that you will be tricked, just as Eve was tricked by the lying snake.” 2 Corinthians 11:3

When a Christian reads horoscopes and the like they are opening the door to allow deceptive and evil spirits into their lives, their children, their grandchildren and God's Word says as far as 7 generations. God doesn't want his children to be deceived, hurt, or oppressed, He has reasons for telling us to leave stuff alone.

God will give you the answers your heart desires. But in His time. He knows you, He knew what your heart would accept and when before you were even created. If you don't have your answers, WAIT.

Don't turn to things that leave you expose to the one that is crouched waiting at your doorstep to pounce. Believe me it's not a battle you want to engage in, there's reasons God says stay away.

The enemy's greatest pleasure is to stand before God and laugh, he wants to be God, it's his greatest desire. He laughs, every time you read that horoscope he stands before Our Father and laughs saying, “Look how easy that is, I can get her to believe my truth more than she believes Yours.” “Look how easy that is to get her to do something You said You hate.”

That's the reality of it all. He delights in your mistakes, he get's his greatest jollies in watching you open the doors for him. Cause see God protects us, but if we open the doors, WE pay the piper on that one, God won't step over your self will... and we usher him right in.

It's a sin, and anything that is a sin will separate us from God and our prayers reaching Him. Repent, ask forgiveness and walk away.

Deuteronomy 18:10-12 “There should not be found in you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, anyone who employs divination, a practicer of magic or anyone who looks for omens or a sorcerer or one who binds others with a spell or anyone who consults a spirit medium or a professional foreteller of events or anyone who inquires of the dead. For everybody doing these is something detestable.”

Ty and I were at Walmart the other day and I don't know what I did but I hit some button that sent our wireless entry on our car into sirens at full alert. Actually this was the first time I heard the alarm go off on our car, lights were flashing, horn was honking, as we both tried to figure out what I had done.

Once we got into the car something hit me, not one person noticed. People went along scurrying in or out of the store. Nobody turned to even look.

We've grown so use to hearing them. There use to be a time when pagers would go off and drive people crazy, then we became use to them too. Then came cell phones, they vibrate, sing us songs, pretty much anything we want them to do to alert us “HEY! There is a matter that needs attention that can't wait until you get home.” Outside of the occasional song someone has set as their ring tone that makes me want to do the duggie (of which I can do, ask my daughter..lol), I pretty much don't notice them anymore either. 

And there in was what got me thinking... If we, I, us do this with things, I just wonder do we do that to God's voice also? Do you know when God is trying to get your attention? I mean before the 2x4, that's the last ditch effort on His part to get you to notice Him. What does God have to do to get your attention? While your thinking about it, let me share a little diddy with you, not “P” but a great story none-the-less. 

As great of a man of God as Moses became, he sure as heck didn't start off that way. Actually he was what I refer to as broken. You know his childhood already, then when we was grown, he murders an Egyptian overseer because he saw him beating a Hebrew slave. Then fearing for his life he ran (this is a common theme with a whole lotta Bible saints) to Midian. Later he gets his life together, finds a wife, has a family and settles into a life of work for his father-in-law as a shepherd. 

So we see him just wondering around looking for grass for his sheep when suddenly he notices something. There right there at the bottom of the mountain is a single bush on fire, yet not a leaf or branch was burned or burning. So he heads over to the bush to check it out, curiosity would have gotten me too. And lo and behold God calls out to Moses from that bush 

So back to my question, what does God have to do to get your attention. 

We are so like Moses, we spend the majority of our lives going about our business of living, being married, raising children, readying ourselves for retirement, working our fingers to da bone at our jobs and our homes, and worrying about our daily problems. 

Generally it takes something unusual to happen to get our attention. God got Moses' by talking through a bush, a burning one no less. Maybe you have had a burning bush experience like Moses, a face to face with something supernatural or maybe He has used other means like, a trip to the emergency room, a car wreck, a marriage being torn asunder, a bad diagnosis, being fired from your job, or financial collapse. 

Sometimes we have to have a traumatic experience or bad news to knock us out of our daily routines and concerns to put us in the position to recognize that God wants to have a word with us. 

And even sometimes that don't get our attention. Then it takes somebody more tuned in spiritually that will grab us by the shoulders and shake us really hard and good and yell, “WAKE UP and pay attention, God is trying to speak to you!

Unlike me, God doesn't feel the need to talk nonstop, He isn't like us humans in that sense. He ain't gonna just casually speak to us if we aren't paying attention. 

And when He has your attention, watch out! Cause it most probably isn't what you were expecting to hear. With Moses God said, “I the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel have come down to deliver them...” Now truly remember here Moses was ALL human. After getting over the fact that God Himself was speaking to him, he must have given a little Whoop! YEEHAW God is going to deliver us. But don't you think he had to wonder through the swirling thoughts, hum.. well that's wonderful but what does that have to do with me?

Remember his life was going pretty good, wife – check, kids – check, nice job – check, father-in-law going to make me a partner in the business – check. Then God spoke again. So, Moses, it's time for YOU to go and bring my people out of Egypt.

I'd have been running surely at this point. We know all the reasons Moses gave for saying he couldn't, shouldn’t, please don't make me. 

And you know what the Lord said? It was five simple words. Words He tells us today if we listen. “I will be with you.” And we know how the story ends. Moses continued to try to wiggle out, complaining about stuttering and such. But not once did God even remotely let him off the hook. 

He had been called, and he was being sent. And Moses did fulfill that calling, God gave him everything he ever would need to accomplish the work He wanted him to do.

But the reality is Moses never would have fulfilled what God had ordained him to do had He not finally gotten his attention. 

Once God has your attention, expect that He's about to give you a commission, a job to do. Now with most of us certainly not to the extent of Moses, David, Paul, Peter and the like. But in our world, your world God is waiting to get your attention to use you.

See God does His greatest work of deliverance, of healing, of making all things new, through humans – just like you and me. 

It might be your neighbor who just lost a spouse, a mother who lost a child. It might be someone alone in a nursing home, it might be someone battling a deadly disease, it might be your own husband, brother, mother or child. But there is someone God is saying to you, “So, come, I am sending you, I will be with you.” 

And really that is all we need to know. Those five words tell you and me, that we CAN take on the task, no matter what it is. 

If you feel like, not me... God could never use me. Well if you are like Moses, feeling equipped for nothing special, then you're in the best place ever to be a modern day Moses. 

If only He can get your attention, God can and will use you for His incredible purposes. Because those He calls, He equips, He sustains. 

Just keep your eyes open! And don't walk past the burning bush. Cause He is there!

He is always there! 

1 King 19: 11-12 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.

When I was a little girl my mom and grandmother were forever bringing me shopping, imagine daily. They could shop from morning to night and not buy a thing, just delight in the experience. One such trip we were at Jefferson City, in the Fair Store. I suppose they were talking and just caught up in the moment of designing a dress in their heads, but they left. Without me. I stood at the door watching them walk away, the door handle was taller than I and the door too heavy for me to push open. I can still see them walking to the car, getting in and driving away. 

The feeling I remember feeling then, was a feeling of being confused, being scared, but mostly being abandoned. Those feelings weren't fun then, and they ain't fun now. Yet that's just what God had me do recently... experience them again. 

I am just emerging from a wilderness experience. Thank goodness today we don't have to put on camel hair coats, eat bugs, and sleep in the woods. We have the comfort of being home on the outside, while our insides are being stripped, laid to bare, and shaken up. 

During these wilderness times God takes away our normal ability (think self will here) to handle our life, and He leads (though sometimes if feels like He throws) you into an intense time of purification, transformation, and inner-healing. 

In the most real sense it is the Holy Spirit helping the Bride ready herself for Him. It's a time when the Lord shakes everything, and whatever remains, will be His new plan for your life. 

Here's a few of the things God brought me through. Details might be different for each of us, but generally the signs are the same and that's what I'll share here. First big sign... your life suddenly seems to have gone out of control. Decisions that were so easy to make in your work, home, your relationships, ain't so easy anymore. You can physically almost feel them being blocked. It's frustrating and frightening. 

The normal Grace that God gives you daily is all but gone. Now you feel like a stranger where once you fit, in your job, your relationships, or with groups of people. During this time, you are only going to have what and whom God wants in your life because He wants as few distractions as possible while He is changing you in the wilderness. 

Then when He has you alone, completely alone the old unhealed areas of pain you use to keep fairly buried or at the very least under control suddenly spring forth to the surface full force. And you find the things you did in the past to comfort yourself, to ease the pain, aren't working. You might find yourself grieving over something that you LONG since have buried, but has secretly been sapping your strength for all these many years. Who knew? Boy, I sure didn't but my God did and He knew it had to go. 

You're physically, mental and emotionally pulled away from the world, and into an intensive time of introspection, study, prayer and just being alone with God. Your normal course of the day, talking with friends, crocheting, facebooking, cooking, reading, whatever it is you fill your days with suddenly have no support from God. 

It's much like driving along a route and suddenly your car takes an exit on it's on and just stays there in a secret spot as you watch all the others whiz by. You feel like a ghost living in a body during this time, and whoever you use to be isn't there anymore. Your old life is gone, and you haven't a clue where this darn car is parked, what you should do or where to go next.

During this time God burns, refines, cuts away, exposes, rubs raw, biopsy's and eradicates those things in your life that hurt you. Even those things that saved you before, now He says you no longer need. And then right when you think you can't go on anymore, you will not survive it, there will come a sense of peace and surrender. 

Then comes the light at the end of the tunnel. God will give you a sign that your situation will end in order to encourage you. It can come as a dream, through His Word, through His voice, an intuition, or through a person. 

When I got a handle on what God was doing then it came time to show me my light at the end of the tunnel. In my case this time God spoke through my daughter's words, through life changing Rhema words, and peace came through words spoken from my other daughter. And then lastly He showed Himself in a friend, who told me it mattered not what I am going through, she is there, through prayer, through a phone call, or even through the silence of standing and waiting. 

It will always come in the form of confirmation of what your heart already knows. Even if it never allowed you to see it before. 

And now I have come out. There is peace, there is more puzzle pieces that have been fit into place.

It's actually interesting that my wilderness, as I look back on it, lasted around 40 days. The irony of that is not lost on me. 

Jesus Himself was in His wilderness for 40 days. He did so to spend time alone with God and prepare. He went immediately after His baptism. He prayed, He listened to God and He meditated on scripture. And even though His disciples didn't understand what he was doing, He did not budge. He didn't come off the mountain to explain or comfort them.

There are many more signs of the wilderness to be found in the Bible. Get away from it all and search them out, Jesus set that standard for us. Because the thing is we all will go through the wilderness, every single one of us. 

There is no getting out of it before it comes, or during it. But I do believe how we handle it, how quickly we accept it instead of fighting against it will determine whether it will be long (Israelite) or shorter (Jesus), that's up to us. 

It's so important that we recognize the signs of the wilderness not only for ourselves but also for when others in our lives are walking through it. It's so easy to assume what a person is going through, why they are acting as they are, and make judgments off that.

Oh Lord, let us be sensitive to the journeys you have others on. Let our heart not be so quick to judge, because in the wilderness prayers for them are life sustaining.

And so another wilderness down, Lord knows how many more I get blessed to go through. I know that as long as I am breathing I can count on them coming.

Oh and if you were wondering. My mom and MeeMaw almost got home before they realized I wasn't in the back seat. But they did realize and they came back and got me. I was not abandoned then, nor was I this time.

He was there! He's always been there!

Hosea 2:14-15 “Behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her. I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; she shall sing, as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.”