Pastor Glen Barnes of the First Baptist Church of Lodi, California tells about an unbelievable experience he had sometime back. Barnes’ church was hosting a couple of visitors, two women, from Lesotho, Southern Africa. According to Barnes these two women have an incredible ministry caring for the poor and sick in South Africa, especially those suffering from AIDS. Unfortunately this ministry was taking a toll on them physically, emotionally and spiritually. In fact, one of the women shared with Barnes in confidence that she was really struggling, feeling burned out and wondering if it was time to move on to another ministry. As they talked about trying to hear God’s voice, she said that sometimes she just wished God would write it on the sky. Then she would know whether she was doing God’s will or not.

Later that very same day Barnes and these two ladies went on a little sightseeing tour of San Francisco. They went out on a boat onto San Francisco bay. They went by Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge. “It was gorgeous,” Barnes reports.

About half way out on their journey, they heard a rumbling like thunder in the sky and they looked up and right above them flew the Blue Angels, the aerobatic team of Navy jets that entertain for special events. The two African women looked terrified and one asked Barnes if America was under attack. He reassured them that it was just a show.

As a part of the magnificent aerial demonstration, one of the planes took off over the city, turned its smoke stream on and went straight up, and it began skywriting. What it wrote was not a word or a sentence, but a symbol. The jet left floating, written in the sky, a big AIDS ribbon. Pastor Barnes looked over at his new friend who was struggling with her work back home attending to AIDS sufferers. He had chills up and down his spine when he saw the ribbon in the clouds. She literally had tears running down her face as it seemed God, on this occasion, had literally written His answer to her in the sky.

Isn't amazing when God speaks to us! He desires to do it at every moment of our day, if we can somehow stop and listen. So today I am going to be keeping my eyes towards the sky and my ears open to see what God has to say!

Rev. Richard