Prolonged Difficulties Need Prolonged Faith

You will keep in perfect peace

    those whose minds are steadfast,

    because they trust in you. Isaiah 26:3

Weeks of difficulties and challenges can leave you feeling physically exhausted, mentally and emotionally drained, and wondering why God is not stepping in to help you.

Even when I had pneumonia years ago, it did not last for more than four weeks. Yet I find myself just now recovering from a lung inflammation/infection as I start my fourth antibiotic and third course of Prednisone over four  weeks later. Daily breathing treatments, coughing, feeling both irritated and frustrated that my lung is still congested after so long, one begins to forget what normal breathing feels like.

While of course God does not abandon us in such circumstances, we can find our patience growing thin and wondering why it is taking Him so long to arrive on the scene. Yet I know from experience that God has His own timing and He often needs to bring certain things or situations into alignment before positive change occurs. In retrospect I can see a couple of things He wanted adjusted through my process of healing, but at the time you are enduring hardship it is difficult to see or understand any of it.

This when experience matters. Recalling past difficulties God has seen you through can be immensely helpful in putting current problems into proper perspective. When we remember all the good things God has already done for us, and the endless difficulties He has brought us through over the years, we can more easily adjust our mind and emotions to face the current problems.

We will all have difficulties in life of one sort or another. Your challenge may be a situation with your job, a difficult relationship, financial troubles, or like myself, a health issue. Whatever you are facing it is worth stopping for a moment in time, look back at past difficulties and successes, and recall that you are never in hard times alone. You have an Awesome, All Powerful, and Faithful Heavenly Father who will never leave or forsake you! Christian, above all never forget that when your days on earth are through Jesus will be there to receive You into His Kingdom!

Prayer: Dear Lord, life can weaken and wear us down, strengthen our feeble knees and put strength back into our step. With You all things are possible. Praise be to Your  Holy Name! Amen.

Have You Lost Your Childlike Joy?

“Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these'” Matthew 19:14

    When I was a child I found joy and excitement in so many things. I remember looking forward to Saturdays, because here in the U.S.A. that was “Cartoon Day” for us. We eagerly anticipated all the cartoons on television that day of every week.

    We got excited about going to the park or to the playground. We were ecstatic about going to get an ice cream cone. If my ten year old self could see the blessings we enjoy today he probably would burst for joy.

    Jesus loved children. He saw in them a sense of joy and wonder that too often fades in adults as the years go by, leaving faithlessness and bitterness in its place. Sadly, even we Christians who have more reason for joy than anyone else on earth are too often joyless.

    When we get to heaven, I suspect all the old, tired, adult bad moods and attitudes we have will be quickly replaced with the kind of joy we lived with every day as children. What awesome wonders await us. What a majestic God we will meet there!

    Every good thing we have ever known on earth will be multiplied a thousand times over there.

    Christian, I know very well how illness, disease, and continued disabilities and afflictions of all kinds can rob you of joy, leaving pain and misery instead. Yet I believe, even if it takes some effort, we need to rekindle that childlike joy and wonder we once knew. We need those childlike eyes that could find wonder, awe, and happiness in the smallest of things.

    I encourage you this week to rediscover the child within you. Discover if you are able to see with the eyes of a child, finding wonder and joy and happiness in the everyday things we too often take for granted.

    Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to be childlike, but not childish and immature. Help us to rekindle that childlike joy and wonder we all enter this world with. Amen.

Coping With The Vicissitudes Of Life

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:13-15

There is a saying: “If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.” That’s a powerful truth. The vicissitudes of life strike us all, often when least expected. Sometimes it is financial turmoil. At other times a breakdown in relationships between friends or family members. But the one that often hits us the hardest is illness, for it most often comes with little or no warning, and even when we think we are prepared for such things--we still find ourselves taken by surprise.

I’m into my second week of the worst bronchitis I’ve ever experienced. That is trying enough with all my other health issues. But just days after my bronchitis diagnosis, my wife has gotten covid. By some miracle we have missed out on the terrible covid surges that first arrived with the virus, and even the delta variant surge that struck over the summer. But as the virus appears to be winding down, my wife is hit hard by the bug.

After two covid tests I am still clear of the virus. Yet the bronchitis has stubbornly clung to my right lung. In the midst of it all I have been to the hospital and urgent care to be checked and tested for covid just to make sure my bronchitis is not “covid in disguise”. Meanwhile, I grieve over my wife suffering with the virus and finding ourselves in the situation where she is now among those afflicted by the terrible bug. She is unused to being the ill one. I told her jokingly that I am the sick one of the house and she is not allowed to be ill. 

Of course we will both survive and get through to the other side of our afflictions. For me it is an old familiar procession. For my wife it is more of a new, and horrible experience.

Covid has been ginned up by the news media milking it for ratings and preying on our already substantial fears of the novel bug. So just the mention of the word “Covid” ignites fears and worries that are amplified with each day’s news stories. Of course the news media does not focus upon the many millions of people in all age groups who have survived the virus, but upon each and every tragedy associated with it. So you find yourself not only having to cope with the virus, which is bad enough, but driving back your own fears which have been stoked for more than a year with Covid.

In all our fears and the troubling vicissitudes of life we must be ready to adjust ourselves and strengthen our faith through whatever trials await us. Remembering all the time that we are not alone. Jesus resides within every believer through the Holy Spirit. We have power from above. And the Word of God to strengthen us. As well as the very angels of God watching over every step in our life.

Do not fear. Do not doubt. And do not dread. We are not as those who have no hope in this world but our hopes are fixed in the very real Person of Jesus, Our Savior lives! And we live by His Spirit and Power at work within us!

Prayer: Dear Lord, life throws many roadblocks in our path. Help us to never get so focused upon the roadblocks that we fail to see You are our guide through, around, and over the roadblocks that come our way. Amen.