Stop. Look. Ask.
Weedsport NY, Sept. 13, 2026
I’m happy to be here this morning. Alive. Happy. Blessed. This has been a learning year for me. Late last year I had some troubling health issues that led to visiting the emergency room where I was diagnosed with pneumonia. But the CT scan also showed signs that turned out to be early-stage 2 lung cancer. I’ve received wonderful health care, a successful operation and follow-up treatment, and am able to stand here in my 89th year of life and praise the Lord with you.
Praise God for his loving attention to us. I thank God for the troubles that caused me to check in to the ER. God loves us so much he sends us signals when there’s trouble ahead. Sometimes it’s not easy to tell the difference between a warning flare and an incoming missile, but there’s a big difference. God wants the best for us; God is in charge. I’m learning to look at troubles and ills in life as “pay attention” signals, certainly not punishments, but part of his plan whether we understand it or not. We are his beloved children. So as a good parent to his children, he warns us and he may steer us. God has given us our operating instructions: to love God with our whole being, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But he also gives us room to make our own choices. Our challenge is to try to cooperate with God’s will.
You’ve probably had warning signs. Something nagging at you. Divine signals can be quiet hints. A slight suggestion in your mind to slow down. Stop for a while. Or a question; Do you really want to do this? Or, think about going this direction, not that one. God can be very subtle. A slight nudge. Like something you don’t quite catch out of the corner of your eye or mind.
God’s divine signals can also be very dramatic. A boiling black cloud flashing flaming fire, filling the space between heaven and earth! A message for a lot of people. But maybe not the same message. God can send multiple meanings in the same message. God is efficient and God is effective. Whether we get it or don’t get it. It pays to listen carefully. Many traditions talk about discerning God’s will - engaging with what is happening in your life and looking in faith for what God is calling you to do. Think of Jacob wrestling with God. Whatever you do, don’t ignore the signals in your life; wrestle with them and see what God is asking of you. In the book of Exodus there’s a literal pillar of fire, a flashing cloud separating the pursuing, heavily armored Egyptian army from the crowd of defenseless Hebrew families making their escape from Egyptian slavery.
God had first spoken gently to Egypt. Pharaoh had been maltreating these defenseless people. Moses and Aaron first asked politely, in God’s name, “Let my people go.” Pharoah said, “No.”
Then warning signs began. The Nile waters turned into blood. Pharoah chalked it up to natural causes or some kind of trick. Nine more increasingly severe plagues came – each as warnings, winding up with the death of all Egypt’s first-born. An echo of Pharaoh ordering the murder of all Hebrew male new-born babies years before. Pharoah still didn’t get the message. But to stop more plagues, he finally let the children of Israel go – for a minute. Pharoah decided he didn’t want to lose his Hebrew slaves after all so he rides out with his heavy cavalry, ordering “Let us pursue them and bring them back as slaves.” But, then a fiery cloud. The same cloud leads the way for the helpless and warns off the pursuers. Different messages. But the same intent. To one He says, ‘Something big is happening. I will continue to lead and protect you.’ To another He says, ‘Watch out. You’re riding into big trouble. Slow down. Stop. Turn around. Go another way.’
We sort of know the story from here. But it’s important to focus on some details, because attention to detail, focusing on what’s really happening rather than how we feel about what’s happening can be an eye-opener and a mind-clearer.
If you saw the movie, you might think Moses raised his staff and the waters instantly parted making a dry sea bed for Israel to walk over. God didn’t do it that way. Here’s what really happened:
The cloud leading Israel, showing them the way forward, suddenly moved behind them. It now became a shield separating Israel from the pursuing army and bringing the Egyptians to a halt. Then during the night, God slowly parted the sea. By the last watch of the night the waters had piled up on the left and right. Now a path had opened through the sea bed for the lightly burdened people and their adult animals to hurry over to the other side.
As dawn came, the Egyptian army saw the people and the path through the sea and ignoring God’s warning signs, rode off into the sea after them. The same path that had been an escape for the Hebrews became a death trap for loaded and heavily armed chariots. God caused the wheels of the heavy chariots carrying the armored Egyptians to sink axle-deep into the sea bed — stuck, mired in the muck of the path a million people and animals had just passed over.
God then commanded Moses to again stretch out his hand and the waters began to flow back. The mired Egyptian army couldn’t go forward or back. The whole Egyptian army drowned as the sea slowly returned to its depths. On the surface this sounds like a story of warning and death. Yes, but it is intended as a story of direction and life. Who was listening to God’s warning?
Those are key details revealing a way that God works. God works through his creation. And God works at his own pace, not ours. We need to pay attention. And God’s plan may not be what we’re expecting.
God urges, warns of the consequence of actions. God isn’t judging or visiting punishment. God is warning. God is saying, “Pay attention.” God warned Pharaoh. God may warn with increasing urgency. God does what God does, wanting the best outcomes for all. And only God knows what the best outcome is. We often act as if we know what’s best. I am guilty of it. We all tend to have our noses to the ground, eyes focused on the immediate situation. We demand God do something about this unfortunate situation, this terrible state, and do it now.
I’ve often misunderstood God’s action as punishment or just bad luck. Too often I’ve just reacted to what’s happening, a reflex, not engaging. But it may have been the spirit of God trying to steer me away from the real trouble ahead … or to see his hand in it all.
God moves at God’s own pace. Because there is often a delay between when we demand action from God and when God acts, we think God doesn’t hear us. Or we begin to think maybe God isn’t even there. Mistake.
A second mistake. When there’s a delay between our urgent request and when God’s intervention actually kicks in, we end up thinking we caused the result ourselves. Or we chalk up God’s work to coincidence, or “good luck.” We do well to be more thankful to God.
God wants life, not death. God wants us to be a people of forgiveness and compassion, not condemnation and punishment. The word, ‘Judgement’ can imply condemnation. But God’s judgement means discernment.
God is a God of mercy and forgiveness, not punishment. If God made us in his image, this means we are to grow into full imitation of God, to Love, to discern, to distinguish, to teach. Discernment opens the door to understanding and forgiveness.
In the familiar gospel reading Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, if someone sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”
Jesus illustrates this with a parable – there was a king who decided to settle accounts with the men who worked for him. One man owed him a huge sum, $600,000 in today’s money. Since he had no means of paying, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and everything he had, to meet the debt. The man fell at his master’s feet. “Be patient with me,” he begs, “and I will pay you in full”; and the master was so moved with pity that he let the man go and he cancelled the debt.
But no sooner had the man gone out than he met with a fellow-worker who owed him $100 dollars; he took hold of him, seizing him by the throat, and said, “Pay me what you owe.” The man fell at his fellow-servant’s feet, and begged him, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you”; but he refused, and had him thrown into jail until he should pay the debt.
The king heard about this. Then he sent for the man and said, “You scoundrel! I cancelled the whole of your debt when you appealed to me; ought you not to have shown mercy to your fellow-worker just as I showed mercy to you?” And so angry was the master that he condemned the man to be tortured until he should pay the debt in full. Jesus ends the parable by warning: ‘That is how my heavenly Father will deal with you, unless you each forgive your brother from your hearts.’ Let’s give Paul the final friendly word of warning about judging and condemning others. 10Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.
I’ve come to believe that at the end of this phase of life, we will each finally stand before God. Let him see we have traveled light through the life God has given us with hearts full of love. Let our record show we have grown into a people who love, and who have forgiven our enemies, who are plenty hard to forgive. But let our record also show we have been discerning enough and loving enough to forgive God for the plan we didn’t understand. And the hardest of all: Those to whom we are most vulnerable. Let our records show we have forgiven our friends, our families, and most of all, that we have forgiven ourselves … as God forgives us.