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"FLABBERGASTED"

  Yes, the word is in the dictionary. I looked it up.  It means to make speechless, to astonish. I even know a girl who was flabbergasted.  

  Our niece in Elgin, Illinois, just finished her first year of college. She was working as a summer waitress at a restaurant. One of her first customers was a family table of very polite people.

  When they finished eating, they paid their bill of $131.00.  What was a big surprise, was that they left a tip of $131. Unbelievable! Our niece was flabbergasted. It turns out, the family was the Donnie Wahlberg family of "Bluebloods Show" fame. That's customary for them.

  My family can't afford 100% tips, but my wife did her share of restaurant work in her younger days and insists on leaving a decent tip.  

  I remember being flabbergasted several times.  One time was nearly twenty years ago on a trip to the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. It was before the building of the famous ARK which, by the way, is on my bucket list. 

  But on my trip to the Creation Museum we visited a Planetarium. I got to lean back in a comfortable easy chair. The auditorium was darkened and the sky was lighted with millions of stars. Needless to say I was flabbergasted.

  It reminded me of the time I got to climb Mt. Sinai. We started to climb at 2:00 am because it was July and the temperature got up to 100 plus in the afternoon. NO MOON THAT NIGHT - STAR LIGHT ONLY!  I was flabbergasted.  

  Let me share with you a time when I was really, really flabbergasted!  I was nearing the end of my nearly ten-year career of summer working at the Ozaukee Golf Course, just north of Milwaukee. I had the night watering job working from sundown to sunrise basically because I knew the course like the palm of my hand.

  It was also the time when I was entering my second year of studies at the seminary. I had to get serious about preaching even though it scared the liver out of me. I remember well when I was a senior in college.

  Each of us seniors had to take a turn conducting an evening chapel service in front of the student body for ten minutes after supper. All we had to do was announce hymn to be sung, read a few verses from the Bible, and read a short prayer. I did not eat a bite for supper that night.  How was I ever going to lead a church service?  

  That night under the stars and the moonlight on the golf course I reviewed what my Lord Jesus Christ had done for me on the cross - not because He had to - but only because He loved me so much.  And if He could do that for me, then I could something for Him with his help. That was my most flabbergasting moment.

  I went on to sign up for preaching engagements every weekend for the next year. Heaven knows I needed the practice.

  How about you? Have you had any flabbergasting experiences with the Lord Jesus lately?