With great pride and fear, I want to let you know that I had two different stalkers. Disclaimer, if you had a traumatic stalker experience I apologize. It can be a serious matter.
My stalker experience was a little lighter. I had one in high school and one in college. No, I didn’t marry one of them. I kind of stalked my wife Mindi though, but we have moved past that, jk, maybe. I cleaned off all the breathing marks in her windows. Just kidding. Back to the story at hand.
The high school stalker one was really nice but really creepy. She used to drive by my house before school and 2 times in the evening, which is funny cause I moved 4 times in high school. She asked me to every dance and would even come to every one of my baseball games. The creepy part of her would be that she would touch my arm every time I walked by her in the hallway. I didn’t know what to do, so I told her to stop and she didn’t. I went my separate way. However, I caught myself doing something funny years ago. I looked up my stalker on Facebook, so in essence, I was stalking my stalker. She found Jesus and is happily married.
Now my college stalker actually started to happen when my wife Mindi, was mad at me after we broke up the first and only time. Mindi knew there were quite of few girls who liked me at our college. Give me a break, the ratio was 7 to 1 girl to guys. My single brothers, loving Jesus is where it’s at. A Christian college is where it is at. Its how I got Mindi. Amen!
Anyhow, Mindi gave my AOL instant messenger ID to a girl who was cray cray and already stalking me. For those of you who I never got to end convos with on IM, I am so sorry. My college stalker would message me over and over. She would say things like I am watching you while I was home in CO. She knew what I was wearing that day when I was back in CA. I had to get off of AOL IM. She was scary. I found out she was my stalker when a random girl in the hallway asked me to pray for her. Guys, drive-by prayers with the opposite sex are unwise, ungodly and if you have a stalker, it fuels them. I said yes to this stalker girl and when we got done she tried to Kiss me. I screamed in a high pitch voice. I didn’t pray with another woman until I got married. The stalker got the hint one day when after her 50th call of the day on my dorm room phone(not sure who gave my number way??) led her to forget to block her number. I called the cops, the dispatch was crying laughing, and the police paid her a visit. Dueces, stalker.
What does this have to do with God, Pastor MIchael? I once heard someone say, “disobedience is like a stalker.” When you give it a little rope or don’t set the boundary right away it intrudes more in your life. When we continue to practice behaviors of disobedience to God we start to give the sins room to show up more. The only way to stop disobedience is to replace it with obedience. Jesus was never disobedient, but at any moment He could have said no to the Father’s plan. He didn’t though, He had already spent His whole life on earth practicing in the ways of obedience to the will of the Father. We can actually practice and train ourselves in obedience to the Father. It starts with putting God first in everything.
This Sunday we are going to talk about in a normal world of great disobedience how to be weird through obedience. Here are two points of GREAT NEWS when it comes to practicing obedience in our lives!
1) We always have the grace to grow.
2) Obedience makes God’s presence and plans more evident in our lives.
We all could use more of God’s presence and plans in our life.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Matthew 7:24
See you Sunday,
Michael