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Guiding light

When I was a little girl I’d often spend the night with my cousins who lived with their grandparents. They had an outhouse for a bathroom. I can remember us little girls taking a flashlight after dark and following the path down the trail to that creepy toilet which was in a field behind the main house. It was always a little scary to us because we never knew what was lurking in the darkness.

This verse is a picture of what the Word of God does for us as we travel through life. It guides us through our journey and helps avoid both perceived and real dangers along the way.

The Bible remains the number one selling book year after year! Unfortunately though, many people haven’t discovered the jewels of inspiration, wisdom, and hope that are recorded there.

Some say they don’t believe the Bible, yet have never even read it. If that’s you, I’d say now is the time to dive in and discover it’s truths. The creator of the universe has given you a manuel for a successful life here in earth. Aren’t you curious to know what’s in it?

Dave Ramsey says that everyone should read the proverbs for their incredible wisdom even if they aren’t a Christian. I agree. That book alone will provide you wisdom for relationships, finances, health, and life in general.

There’s a big movement within the church today for believers to get more into the study of the Word. Many are participating in one or two year plans to read it through cover to cover. This is good because even though it isn’t written chronologically, the Bible is actually a story. It’s the story of man from his creation to eternity and God’s plan for his redemption. Reading it cover to cover allows the story to unfold.

It’s exciting to see the church gaining the wisdom presented in God’s word. As the days get darker before the return of Christ and Christian persecution intensifies, we are going to need the strength the Word of God brings more than ever.

My greater desire, though, is for those who aren’t believers to begin to search it out. For not only will they find help, wisdom, and guidance for these moments in time, they will find the keys to eternal life as well.

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How to have peace in turbulent times

It was our bi-weekly Wednesday night Bible study the day after the 2020 presidential election. Naturally, the conversation turned to the election results which were, of course, still being tallied. But it was looking grim for our candidate – the man that we thought would be best to lead our country over the next four years. We were all speculating on what would happen to our country if the other candidate won. There was concern about the kind of nation we would leave to our children and grandchildren. We were undoubtedly anxious.

We ended our session with prayer and someone asked for God to give us peace.

Peace

We haven’t seen a lot of that in 2020. With Covid-19 ravaging the nation causing much sickness, numerous deaths and widespread fear, as well as prompting shutdowns, cancelled events, mandatory. business closures, illegal church services and an incident of police brutality leading to riots, chaos, attacks on police, violence and burning cities, peace has been in short supply to say the least.

How can we possibly have peace in our hearts with so much going on, especially now with the uncertainty of what a new administration might bring.

Then I was immediately reminded of this verse.

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trust in you. Isaiah 26:3

What a beautiful promise this is for us. We can’t control everything in our world, in fact we can’t control most things, but we can choose to dwell on the Lord and if we do, he promises to bring us peace.

What can we control?

We can control our thoughts and choose to lean into Jesus, thanking him for all the goodness and blessings in our life. This will bring peace and contentment to our soul.

We can read his word to learn his ways and the promises it holds for those who love him. This will bring peace and encouragement to us.

We can fellowship with other believers in order to help each other stay focused on God during tough times. This will bring us joy and peace to each other.

And we can attend church and worship even though we may have to do it virtually for now. Worshiping God and hearing the Word of God motivates us to become more devoted to him which ultimately brings us peace.

All these things will help us keep our mind on the Lord.

Even if we get through this 2020 crisis unscathed, more turbulent times are coming. But God’s promises still hold true. He will never leave us or forsake us. (Joshua 1:5) and that’s a good verse to dwell on for sure.

Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7

A life without hope

I had the privilege of traveling to Ukraine in the 1990’s right after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Our choir was one if the first Christian groups to go in. One if the most stunning things I noticed was the blank stares of hopelessness on everyone’s face. The country was in shambles and it looked like nothing had progressed since the 1940’s. Communism had taken away the people’s desire to work, produce or even hope for anything other than basic existence.

As long as people have hope they can endure just about anything. But when hope is gone, despair sets in and people can lose even the will to live. That’s why it saddens me at some of the popular thinking today that spreads hopelessness to so many lives.

Why keep people down?

Those that struggle with same sex attractions are told they should just accept that as the way God made them and make the best of it. Amazon has even gone so far as to censor books that contain research even suggesting that hope and help is even available.

Why keep people in bondage? The truth is that people can change. I’ve seen it first hand with people I personally know that through Christian counseling have overcome those desires and now are happily married with children.

If a woman becomes pregnant unexpectedly, to the abortion advocate there is no thought that the child might actually be a blessing. It must be destroyed. Yet, even in cases as horrible as rape, we hear testimony after testimony of women who choose life for their child and the joy and the blessing brought into their life by that unplanned child.

The list continues. If you are poor, some say you will always be poor and we have to keep raising the minimum wage because you can never hope for anything other than an entry level job.

If you are on welfare they will tell you there is no hope of you ever being able to get off because you’re just not capable of working so we must keep the government checks coming. People rise from minimum wage jobs every day and get off welfare to become productive citizens. Unless they are truly disabled, those on welfare need for people to believe in them, not tell them they are incapable of providing for themself by sending them money week after week, month after month and year after year.

In the movie Shawshank redemption. Morgan Freeman’s character, Red, is quoted as saying that “Hope is a very dangerous thing,” but the Bible says quite the opposite and that Hope deferred makes the heart sick. (Proverbs 13:12)

We all need hope and a vision for something better when things aren’t going as they should. Some get their pleasure out of keeping people down. I want to be someone that gives people hope by pointing them to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11