Written in the USA a few years ago.

A couple of months ago I drove the two and a half hour trip from Leland, Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee to drop Arun Kumar off at the airport. Arun is a pastor in India with who we are in partnership. Whenever we are in the big city we try and catch a movie we would not normally see in our neck of the woods. We saw Seven Days in Utopia, a great golf movie with a real faith life message. The golf was as great as the story! It was not your traditional 'christian' movie, but a movie with a compelling faith story. The movie ends just before the final putt on the 18th hole playoff! The first screen title refers you to www.didhemaketheputt.com to find out what happened. At first I thought it was a joke, but this week I ordered the movie on Netflix (for SA readers, that is a one price per month for as many DVDs you can watch, one at a time, or instant access on your computer or TV. It works because the mail is so quick and reliable) to watch it again and pay more attention to the story line. I went straight to the Internet this time to look up the website. Sure enough it concluded the movie and gave insight into the book behind the movie and the sequel, presently being written. We actually got to the movie house in Memphis a few minutes late and missed the beginning of the movie (a pet hate). Watching it again, I saw it started with a text - Isaiah 30:21, which I dutifully looked up. The text struck me, "If you wander off the road to the right or the left, you will hear his voice behind you saying, "Here is the road. Follow it." How do we hear his voice when we have wandered off the road? In my experience his voice has come in a myriad of ways - primarily through waiting for something to happen, faith and hope that something will happen, and the grace of others. But this waiting, believing, hoping and grace is not in a vacuum. It comes though the attention I give to my personal devotional life. I worship (Sundays), I read the scriptures (mostly daily), I read books, I listen to music, I pray, and I keep a journal. These things seldom show me the road as much as I wish they would. The voice comes through circumstances, usually beyond my control and in unexpected ways, which I have come to learn is the Spirit blowing like the wind. As I faithfully (doggedly, laboriously, often un-inspiringly) pay attention to my inner life with God I hear his voice in these places where I least expect to. Isaiah 30:20, the preceding verse spells it our a little more clearly, it is God showing the road in the difficulties of our life. "The Lord will make you go through hard times, but he himself will be there to teach you, and you will not have to search for him any more." There he is, his Spirit like wind blowing (we don't where it comes from or where it is going) and his voice showing us the road to take.