500th post!

According to my blogging software, this is Finding direction‘s 500th post!  Can you believe it?  It’s true.

It all started waaaay back in the 5th October 2002, at 9:46pm.  I don’t know what post #250 was, but about halfway back would be the 22nd of December 2004.  Interestingly enough, that post was to announce another blog I was starting (one that’s still going as well).

What’s the most appropriate thing I could say looking back over the past few years and all those 499 posts?  I guess I need to say – thanks, God, for all the amazing things You’ve done!

Before we left Calgary I gave my testimony at a Men’s Breakfast at our church.  I told a story about getting lost in Algonquin Park with my friend Matt (no, it wasn’t his fault either).  Algonquin Park is in Ontario.  It covers over 7700 square kilometers (4800mi), and contains over 2400 lakes.  We had decided to canoe across a lake and climb the highest hill we could see.  Pretty soon we had lost our campsite, our lake and our canoe.  After several hours of wandering (and singing at the top of our lungs, hoping someone would hear), we were making plans for a shelter to sleep in.

Finally we reached a lake I thought I recognized.  I figured that if we could walk around the lake and climb the next peak, we would get to the campsite.  The brush was so thick around the lake we had to walk waist deep in the water.  Somewhere in there I lost my hunting knife, and of course we were drenched and tired.  We climbed up the next hill, and we did see our canoe, and our campsite.  But we had come at it from the opposite direction than what we expected.

In other words, we were completely turned around.  We thought we were going the opposite direction.  And yet, in spite of it all, God led us back to our campsite!

That could be the story of my life.  If anything good has come of it, if I’ve ever ended up in the right place doing the right thing, it’s not because of my plans and my wisdom.  As I look back over my life so far, I can see so many times I was in danger, and yet, due to circumstances beyond my control, God has led me safely.

Oh, I’m not saying I haven’t made stupid choices and made bad mistakes.  But how much worse things would be without that hidden hand of God in my life!  And I know that He truly will work all things for good (Rom 8:28), and complete what He has started in my life (Phi 1:6).

All the credit for anything good goes to Him!  Praise the Lord!

To finish the story, Matt and I still had a lake to cross to get to our canoe.  Matt went on ahead, swimming toward the canoe, and just as he was about to make it he got a bad cramp and almost couldn’t lift himself in.  But he made it.  Remember, we were still fully dressed.  Then I came behind, and the same happened to me.  But I finally got in, and we wobbled back to our campsite.  Where our friends (not knowing what had happened) threw rocks at us for being late.  Don’t worry.  They missed.

A few more interesting stats about this blog:

• Most popular post of 2007
• Most popular post in the last 30 days
• Most popular video post
• Most popular audio post (I can see the kids are more popular than I am!)
• Most popular devotional post
• Most popular missions related post
• Most popular news and current events post
• Most popular post on computers/internet, and incidentally the most popular post of all 500