{"id":493,"date":"2023-10-11T12:06:14","date_gmt":"2023-10-11T16:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/?p=493"},"modified":"2023-10-11T12:06:14","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T16:06:14","slug":"i-didnt-know-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/?p=493","title":{"rendered":"” I Didn’t Know That “"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201c I didn\u2019t know that \u201c<\/p>\n

At a conference a few\u00a0 years ago, we were honoring our Pastor for his many years of service. Different men stood and spoke. One man in particular stood and made this statement that really struck me, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to know where you are going to go\u201d.
When I was young I thought, when I grow up, I want to either be a cook or a preacher. Well I can cook eggs, grits and tomato gravy and that\u2019s about it. As time went by I forgot about the preacher part.
It’s good to plan the basic things in life like eating right, getting a good education, learn how to swim, how to fix broken things and such. There are certain things and events we cannot plan or know until it\u2019s time has come, if we did we would probably change them and they would never happen, extremely important things. We are told,\u201d you have to plan your life and future\u201d. Well, maybe a few things such as those above, education and the basic things.
As this man spoke, you know the, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to know where you are going to go\u201d, man. He spoke of some things in his life that he didn\u2019t know would happen, like relating to this paster, meeting his own wife and such.
My thoughts began to look back in my own life at all the things that happened. Now I\u2019m not talking about the bad things that happened because of my ignorance, I\u2019m talking about the planned things that God did. I didn’t know that at age 37 that I would be born again, baptized in water and the Holy Spirit. I didn\u2019t know that 7 years later I would meet my wife Sharon. I didn\u2019t know that 7 months after, we would marry. I didn\u2019t know that I would pray for the sick and lost. I didn\u2019t know that a church would be formed around these people. I didn\u2019t know that I would become a preacher. I didn\u2019t know that I would become a part of the church body that was honoring this paster. I didn\u2019t know that my wife and I would move to the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. I didn\u2019t know that I would be writing these notes to you. I didn\u2019t know. I didn\u2019t know. I didn\u2019t know.
There are very important things in this life that we just can\u2019t know, until we go. I love to surprise my wife and others. I love to give unique gifts and see the surprise on their faces. Don\u2019t give me a pair of socks for my birthday, surprise me. God must really get a kick out of surprising us, because he does it enough.
Relax, stop worrying about the future. \u201cBut I\u2019m not doing anything\u201d. \u201cI don\u2019t know what to do\u201d. \u201cIf God would only tell me\u201d. \u201cI feel so guilty\u201d. \u201cI\u2019m stagnating and nothing is happening\u201d. Could be we are just worrying about what\u2019s time has not come yet. While we wait for God\u2019s next surprise that we don\u2019t know about yet, Go enjoy life. Go fishing. Go shopping. Play music. Go on vacation. Go to the Mountains. Go love your neighbors.
The scripture says, \u201cMy times are in your hands\u201d and \u201cUnless the Lord builds the city the watchman watches in vain\u201d. The things we don\u2019t know about are greater than what we hope for.<\/p>\n

David McClary<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c I didn\u2019t know that \u201c At a conference a few\u00a0 years ago, we were honoring our Pastor for his many years of service. Different men stood and spoke. One man in particular stood and made this statement that really struck me, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to know where you are going to go\u201d. When I … Continue reading “” I Didn’t Know That “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-post"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7MyQu-7X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":496,"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions\/496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avoicefromthemountain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}