Lookin' For a Four-Leaf Clover

This morning the kids and I played in the backyard. The girls ran around and played on the swingset while I pulled Carson around and around in the wagon, wearing a trail in the high grass of our unkempt yard. (I actually like it that way; I LOVE all the wild types of weeds and flowers and greenery that spontaneously grows in place of plain-ol-grass if we leave it alone.)

We are in full spring here; these past few weeks have been the best weather Southeast Texas has to offer. We simply have to drop what we're doing and head outside while it's beautiful- before we begin the six months of humid, miserable heat.

Today, as I traipsed through the yard in my flip-flops, I looked on the ground at all the clover. Since it's St. Patrick's Day, and the girls and I had already done a 'Shamrock' picture earlier in the morning, I wanted to pick some clover for them to inspect more closely. A brown spider sprinted across my toes as I squatted in the yard. After I gave the girls some clover (clovers?), I kept pulling Carson in the wagon and my eyes kept falling down to the clover, searching for that four-leaf clover I still have never found.

I will always remember my friend Patsy, who seems to have an innate ability to find four-leaf clovers constantly. Fitting, don't you think? Patsy always finds four-leaf clovers? Well I have an Irish name, too, thank you very much, but I still haven't found that four-leaf clover.

I'm not at all suspicious (or whatever the opposite of that is, in this case.) I have not an inkling of belief in luck. But it would be fun to find one, and show the girls, since four-leaf clovers are rare.

Nope. I don't believe finding a four-leaf clover will bring me luck, or be a good 'sign'. But it seems lately I've been looking for four-leaf clovers in other areas of my life.

Do you do that? When you're praying about something - whether it's small or life-changing - do you look for a sign that God is pointing you in a particular direction? It seems that's what I've been doing lately. There are a handful of things the Hazleton family has been praying about in recent weeks and months, and I have found myself on several occasions wishing, hoping, praying for a sign. God, just tell me what you want us to do!

I wonder if the answer is right there in front of us, in His Word. Written centuries ago, and still alive and powerful and able to light our path.

The Lord brought a particular Scripture to me yesterday morning, and then, about 12 hours later, a friend sent me the same verse:

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying,

This is the way, walk in it,

when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.

(Isaiah 30:21)

This is the way, walk in it. Is it true that His Word has really given us all we need for life and godliness? Do we make it too difficult? His Word will light my path. His voice will lead us in the way. And I may step on that four-leaf clover as I'm following His voice, because it won't matter. I won't be looking down on the ground for a sign. I'll have my eyes fixed ahead on where He is pointing. And not all the luck or signs in the world is better than that.