[Darris McNeely] So a few nights ago I'm sitting in my house and I heard this big racket, a big crash in my backyard. And when I opened the door, turned on the light, there was this tree sprawled across my backyard just barely missing my house and my deck without any damage, but quite a large tree as you can see that fell. It was windy that night. It was a tree, actually, that I had been watching on the edge of my property knowing that if it fell it would probably fall exactly where it did, and hoping that it wouldn't create any damage.

Well, it fell and nothing happened. And as I was thinking about this a scripture came to mind in Matthew chapter 7 where Jesus at the end of the Sermon on the Mount talked about the wisdom of those who would listen and do the things and the sayings that He was going through in that particular sermon. And He said in verse 24 of Matthew chapter 7, He said, "Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine and does them, I will liken them to a wise man who built His house on a rock. The rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house and it did not fall for it was founded on the rock" (Matthew 7:24).

To listen to what Jesus says, to do His teachings He says is wise and whatever comes in life is not going to upset it.

And He goes on in the other two verses, 26 and 27, to say that if you hear and you do not do these things then you're going to be foolish and the wind and the rain will come and on that house there will be a great fall (Matthew 7:26-27). You know, we can see certain problems down the road or certain things that we might be able to predict and take action to prevent them. There are certain other things that happen to us that are without our ability to control. Regardless, we can either take action in advance or we can also take action in advance and be ready for any change in life, any calamity, any problem that comes whether it's of a natural, physical matter or something perhaps a little bit more spiritual because in every life there's going to be something like that happen.

It's inevitable for every one of us, and it is our relationship with God, Christ, and the closeness, the proximity there that is going to help us to deal with whatever rainfalls, whatever wind blows, whatever gets knocked down. This tree in a sense as I said I've been watching and saw that it was going to fall and just recently it did. Here's the other part of this story. Right next to this tree out of this picture there's another tree, and it's a bigger tree. And it's leaning too and it happens to be just as dead as this tree. If it falls, it'll come right across my house and great will be the fall of it and great will be the property loss.

Hopefully no injury to any other person, but I see that one coming. And I can take steps and I will take steps to make sure that that doesn't happen. And I think that's the wisdom of what Jesus says. We can all take steps in our life to keep from having an injury and problems and certain difficulties. And those things He expects us to take care of. And even the things that are beyond our control, He is still there to guide us and help us through if we rely completely upon Him. It's an important lesson to learn. The rains will come. The winds will blow. How will we react? How will we prepare ourselves?

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.