If you're paying attention, a child will often tip you off very early as to what to expect from them later on in life. I've got movies of our daughter, and she was about five or six, maybe, singing for us using a spoon - a big wooden spoon - as a microphone and standing on something in the living room as a stage. Well, over the years, she's done singing, and a lot of speaking. It was really no great shock; we saw the first hints of that when she was little. When our son was five, he was tying our house together with string very imaginatively. I'd walk in, I'd open the back door, and it would open the drawer of my dresser in the bedroom. He had everything tied together. At the age of 13 he was the technician of the house, who loved to figure out how things work, how to take them apart, how to put them together, I hope - how to solve problems. You know what? He grew up to be a great planner and a very creative ministry technician. There's a pattern...a connective line from the past into the future in the life of every child; my child and God's child. In fact, that's true of you too.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Leading of a Lifetime."

Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Psalm 37. I'm going to begin reading in verse 4, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this." Verse 23 says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in His way." Don't you get the feeling as you hear about how God is leading in these passages that His leading in our lives is a consistent, long-term pattern - not just some sudden departure. God usually leads in a straight line. He doesn't just go "boing" off on some tangent. It's a straight line from what He's been doing in your past, into the present, and consistently into your future.

Now, maybe you're at one of those crossroads right now. It's decision time; you've got a major choice to make. Well, one guideline in determining what God wants for the future is to see where He's been leading you and how He's been leading you in the past. For example, here it talks about Him giving you the desires of your heart. Could you trust your desires in this decision? Well, if you've kept the first part of the verse you can. "Delight yourself in the Lord."

Have you been, over the last months and years, having daily time with Him, where you're just enjoying Him?

Then it says, "Commit your way to the Lord." I wonder if you've said to Him over and over again about this area of your life, "Lord, anything goes. Whatever You say is okay." I'm committing to obey you, sight unseen. I don't know what it is but I will follow You. You're not giving Him a contract to sign; you're giving Him a blank piece of paper that you've already signed.

Well, with those understandings when you're trying to decide, look at those desires you've felt for a long time, especially the ones you've felt when you've been close to Him. Not just things you've felt for a few days. And if they line up with God's Word and with good counsel, and with the facts, those desires are probably God-planted.

Now, keep a spiritual diary of what He says to you through the Bible. I've been doing that for years. I'm so glad I've got that. Don't make a major decision based on one verse, but look at the things God has been saying to you over and over. Look for the pattern. God's will for tomorrow will pull together all He's been doing in your life up until now: the experiences, the fulfilling achievements, the talents, the desires, the themes that He's unfolded to you in His Word.

So before you look ahead, look back at God's pattern in your life. His will is the natural next step of following Him daily up until now. He's leading you in a straight line. So, don't just grab the impulse of a moment. Look for the leading of a lifetime.

"Family Secrets" - that was the bold headline on a Newsweek magazine. The story was inspired by what happened in the life of then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was, as she was being considered for that position, learning a secret her family had kept for decades. She thought her grandparents had been Czechoslovakian Catholics who died peaceful deaths. But they were, in fact, Jews who'd been murdered in a Nazi concentration camp. But Newsweek was using that incident to point out how many families have secrets in their closets, from hidden adoptions to hushed-up romances, sometimes with painful consequences. Like one lady the story told about, a lady named Deborah. She was a student at a music conservatory when she married an African American man. She's white and she had two sons. Later that marriage ended in divorce.

When Deborah moved back to her parents' white neighborhood, her sons were not accepted there, so she decided they'd be better off living with an African American family. She put them up for adoption and tried to resume her life. But she was tormented by that decision. In fact, she lost her trained lyric-soprano voice. She said, "I was never able to sing after that." When she remarried, she kept her past a secret for ten years. When she finally confessed it to her husband, he responded compassionately, they went on a search for her sons and there's a happy ending. In the magazine's words, "The family was reunited, the secrets were told, and almost miraculously, her singing voice came back."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Secret That Keeps You From Singing."

It's amazing the torment that can come from a dark secret. Maybe you know that firsthand. In a sense, it can keep you from singing, from experiencing all the joy and all the freedom that you were created to have. It's even more amazing the release that can come from dealing with the dark secret.

Maybe there's a dark secret or more than one secret that are tying you up inside. It may be your secret sins, or the sins of someone else against you. But as long as it's a secret, you're a prisoner to it. And even though others may not know the dark secrets you carry, they're feeling the effects of it. They feel it in your anger, your depression, or some other way it comes out in your personality. Usually when you continue to store a dark secret, it just continues to multiply the pain and keep you from singing.

Well, our word for today from the Word of God, it's got hope in it! John 8:32 - "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Now we live like this: "the truth will scare you to death, or the truth will ruin you." Jesus said no, it will "Set you free." Like that woman who could no longer sing, you can't be free until you face and deal with the dark secrets. Jesus goes on to say, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin, if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed." Jesus is the Liberator from the bondage of your past! Maybe it's time for you to open up your hurting heart to the Liberator so He can do what only He can do.

If you're going to face the dark secret, you need someone to go with you there who will not condemn you, and that would be Jesus. He's known your secret all along. He died to pay for all that sin. He died to forgive it. You need someone who is also strong enough to carry that secret, to heal its wounds, to restore you. Isaiah 53 says of Jesus, "He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him." That actually happened on Jesus' cross where every sin and every secret of your life was dealt with and paid for.

And today He's saying, "I'm ready to help you face it, to make you clean, to become your personal Savior." Would you tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours." Our website will help you cross that line. It's ANewStory.com.

You've been a slave to those secrets long enough, haven't you? Maybe this is your day to finally be free and to finally sing again.

It's amazing what a difference two words can make. For example if you're a teenager, your life can change dramatically when you hear just two words, "You're grounded!" Or if you're working, "You're fired." Or those two words that changed my life forever. You know what those two words were? "I do." It's amazing what two words can do.

Now, if you're in a down time right now, there are two words that can make all the difference to you. And then there are two words you may not feel like saying at all.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Two Words That Lighten the Load."

Our word for today from the Word of God, 1 Thessalonians 5:18. For those of us who are wondering what God's will is right now, here it is. "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Paul says here that the giving of thanks in all circumstances is really tied to our destiny in being in the center of God's will. I think that the suggestion here is that two of the most powerful words we can speak are "Thank you." Or more precisely, "Thank God."

We all know that we like to be thanked, and we all know how it feels to do a lot for someone and never get a thank you. Right? Of course God is an expert in that field. But when you say, "Thank God," that's when I think it does more for you than it does for Him, especially if you're in a time in your life when you don't feel like saying thanks, because the specific present circumstances aren't very pleasant.

There are a few benefits, I think, that come from saying those two powerful words, "Thank God!" First of all - contentment. Even in the midst of an ugly situation like Paul being in prison, you can find contentment by saying the words, "Thank you." Paul certainly knew about that when he wrote the book of Philippians 4.

Remember what he said? "The peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus." He had experience to write that. And then he says in verse 6, "In everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Say, "Thank God" and a marvelous sense of contentment will come over you, even in one of life's prisons. The secret of contentment in a crummy situation - a terrible situation - is to focus on the Lord - the good things that He has been doing in the middle of the bad. It means focusing on what you have, not what you don't have. Thank God!

The second thing that it does is you don't need to be noticed. See, pride gets stamped out at the gate when you give credit where credit is due and is properly given to God right away. "God, I know this was You. Thank You." When you start to take the glory for what God has done, stop. Send it up to God, "Thank God." Don't let your ego start to inflate.

The third benefit of thanking God is confidence. Because, you see, the same God who blessed your life in the past, who brought you through other things in the past, is going to meet you today. Look at His track record. Look at His history. The same God who I just thanked for moving a mountain yesterday, He is going to move mountains again for you. He'll do it all again! He's done it all these years for all His people. He's the same yesterday. He's the same today. He's the same forever. He's going to meet your needs today.

Rejoicing is really the habit of looking for God at work and acknowledging it when you see it. Thanking God is sort of like putting sweetener in a bitter drink. Negative thoughts are just going to make the drink that much more bitter. A thankful heart, a joyful heart, a heart that believes that God has said, "I know the plans I have for you. They are for good and not for evil; to give you a future and a hope."

In the midst of this small dot in your life, look at the big picture and say, "Thank You, Lord."