The world is watching something unfold that has never happened before. There have been natural disasters and there have been diseases, there have also been pandemics through history. However, what is happening right now is unprecedented in our experience.

The disease that has been unleashed is something that we don’t know. We don’t know what to expect and that is causing so much stress as people wonder what to do.

Industry is grinding to a halt and people are losing their jobs. People are panic buying groceries and other household items. It causes those who don’t buy in such a fashion to have to race around visiting more stores to find what they need. This, at a time when we are being asked to stay indoors.

The news is all about this virus and what is happening in the world. I read today that nurses in Italy have taken their own lives in remorse after being diagnosed. They can’t live with the idea that they may have infected those that they care for.

Parents are working from home and, in many places like where I live, they are being asked to become their children’s teachers with a full curriculum while still trying to get their actual work done. I can’t imagine what parents who have to physically go to work are doing just to have their children watched, let alone try to get their classwork done.

The kind of stress that people are feeling can sometimes be expressed in anger and physical abuse. In a city close to where I live, the police have said that incidents of serious child abuse has escalated dramatically.

I’ve read of younger people in their twenties and thirties blaming older people for all the ills in the world and suggesting that we, as a people, simply let older people die. They say the older individuals are selfish and are leeches on the system without putting anything in. Of course, they are disregarding the fact that the older individuals worked their whole lives and many still work.

Between the stress and the hate and the uncertainty of life, there are two ways to go forward. One is to let hate consume you and to blame others for everything that is wrong.

The second way is to love one another and to reach out and help each other.

The first way leads to death and the second way leads to life.

Christians are called on to love one another. We are called to put our worries, anger, problems and uncertainty in the hands of our Father. We are asked to sacrifice the way that Jesus sacrificed for us. That is, to give without any thought of return. To give to those who hate us.

When you feel like things are spiraling out of control and you are overwhelmed, look first to God and ask for his help. Ask him to send people of God to aid you and call your local church if you have needs. They will be there to help you regardless of whether you are Christians or not.

John 16:31-33

“Do you now believe?” Jesus replied.

“A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

There is so much fear in the world today. There is a virus that is spreading globally and people are afraid of it. Not much is known about it except that for the vast majority of people, it will not be a hard illness to go through.

However, for segments of society, it can and will be deadly. I’m one of those individuals. I have existing and significant lung damage and my immune system is impaired by the medications I take for the severe allergies that caused the lung damage.

I know that if I catch this virus, it is more than likely that I will not survive it. However, I am not afraid.

I was face-to-face with death just over two years ago when the doctors in the hospital told me that I was not expected to live through the night. At that time, I faced my mortality and, instead of focusing on it, I looked into eternity with God.

My prayer at that time was for those I would leave behind. I knew I would miss my family but that I would meet most of them in heaven in the future. I remember laying back into the bed, closing my eyes, and telling God that I was ready to go.

While I was ready, it was not in his plan for me to die that night. I lived and while I didn’t heal completely, I have a life that has been filled with him and my spirit is healed.

When I see the fear of the people, really the fear of all the nations, I am sad. It seems that even those who have been saved by Jesus Christ are being consumed by fear.

Fear and worry will add nothing positive to your life. You will not be able to change one single thing by either emotion. You will not live longer, you will not stay well. You will not thrive because them.

There are two types of fear spoken of in the Bible. One is the fear of God. That fear means a reverent acknowledgement that God is supreme. He is awe inspiring and we should look at him in amazement.

The other type of fear is not from God. It is an emotion that will wear you down and, if you live with it constantly, it can destroy you. This type of fear is from Satan.

Satan seeks to turn you away from God and to focus only on yourself. Fear does that. You start fearing everyone and everything and, before you know it, hate can emerge. If only this person or that thing was gone, you would be okay. Some people then start to take actions to make it happen.

God tells us over and over again, more than 80 times in the Bible, to not fear. He tells us that he is with us and will protect us.

That doesn’t mean we won’t get sick, we won’t lose our jobs, we won’t have hunger, we won’t have mortality. It means that, if we have accepted Jesus’ gift of salvation, God will protect us from Satan’s horrific plan for humanity. Satan wants us to join him in torment for eternity.

God’s promise of protection is that he will not allow that to happen to those who believe in him. He will give us his strength to get through this and any other trial in the future.

Isaiah 41:10

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

In the midst of a crisis is when we see what controls a person’s heart. Do they rely on their own strength? Do they look to their loved ones? Perhaps they expect their doctors to perform miracles. Some even expect their government to save them. Many people live in fear and want someone somewhere to save them.

I don’t believe that any of these are things that can actually save you. I know that God is the one that saves us. He has given knowledge and insight to others and, it is through his help that you can receive help and/or treatment.

Just think about it. Every time there is a huge breakthrough of any sort, some individual takes the glory for themselves. It used to be that God would be given glory as well. These days, that doesn’t happen much at all.

If someone actually mentions God, they are derided and are called all sorts of names. They are compared to those who think that the earth is flat.

It’s amazing just how much hate is riled up when the name of God is voiced. Satan is alive and well and is creating so much hate in the hearts of men, it is difficult to live through.

I’m sure that it has always been thus, that Satan and his demons have turned the hearts of man to hatred. It is just so much prevalent and so easily voiced today.

There are all sorts of medium in which to express this hate. There are so many others who agree with it. They come together as one to wage battle against those who truly believe in God.

I say truly because there are charlatans and heretical preachers abounding. Oddly enough, the churches who espouse wrong theology are quite often the ones that seem to grow. Of course, Satan doesn’t target them for abuse because they are speaking false doctrine that will lead individuals astray and not to the forgiving God who loves them.

It is a hard time in which to speak of ones faith but, even so, we are to do so. We can expect backlash and hatred because Jesus warned us that it would happen.

He didn’t say to spread the Gospel when it was convenient, he said to spread it to the entire world. That was and still is, the work that he left for us to accomplish. When it is hard, he will be right there beside us to help us.

That doesn’t mean the path will be made easier, but it does mean that we can take heart that he is there and will give us the strength we need in order to accomplish what we are to do.

When there is a crisis of any sort, whether physical, financial or emotional, he is there. He is holding us up with his strength and will save us. We don’t need to live in fear, we need to live in the knowledge of his great love and faithfulness.

The body is a weak and fleeting vessel but the soul is forever. He is looking at us with forever eyes and wants our souls to be healed and for us to be brought into right-standing with God.

That is the salvation that we should be looking for. It isn’t hard to find. It has been right there waiting for us since Jesus hung on a cross, looked at each of us across eternity and then willingly died for our sins. Salvation is waiting, he is waiting. All we need to is receive him.

While you should always seek help from agencies that are there for that purpose and medical treatment when ill and take the medications that God has given to man in his infinite love and kindness, don’t expect another person to save you. Call on Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and you will be saved for eternity.

Deuteronomy 31:6

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

Our lives are racing by. I know that it is something that I think about as I grow older. I look back and think of things that I could have done. Things that I didn’t do because I was allowing myself to get caught up with society and with the worries and the strife of life.

Recently, I was thinking that I was growing too old to be of service to God. I regretted all the wasted years when I could have gotten out and done more to spread the Word of God and to show other people the promise of his Kingdom.

I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself. On the contrary, I simply felt that I had wasted much of my life. It seemed like I had missed the opportunity to serve God and to accomplish his purpose in my life. I had acknowledged to myself that, in this sense, I was a failure.

I wasn’t praying about this. I wasn’t talking to anyone about how I felt. I was just living with the heavy burden of not having done what God wanted me to do. I didn’t even know what he had wanted, I just knew that I had not done much of anything at all.

I had started reading the Bible according to a 365 day Bible plan that meshes Old and New Testament readings by subject and history rather than by the way the Books of the Bible are presented. I’m not trying to read it in a year as I have done that before. I’m reading at a pace that allows me to dig deeper, generally one or two chapters a day.

I was in the midst of Exodus and was reading of the time when God sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh. The study pointed out that these two men were 80 and 83 years old when God sent them on their most important life’s mission.

It was then when I realized that I had not missed my opportunity. I was right where I was supposed to be and at the time that I was supposed to start writing.

If I had attempted to do so earlier, I would not have had the same life experiences. It was through the failures and successes of my life that God wanted me to write and reach out to others.

While I still have days of feeling kind of old (when the bones stiffen and crack and the muscles ache – which is pretty much every day), I no longer question how God can use someone as old as I am to do his work.

Through the work of Moses and Aaron, God brought the people of Israel out of bondage and created a nation. He set them apart and continued his work in setting up a lineage from which the Savior would be born. That Savior is Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah.

God didn’t think the two men were too old. They had the right life experiences to be exactly the individuals that he needed to accomplish his work.

If you are thinking you are too old, too young, too smart, too uneducated, too anything to be of use to God, you are mistaken. God takes as we are and uses us with all of our flaws to tell the story of his goodness and power. He uses our imperfectness to show the redemptive power of his son, Jesus.

If we were everything perfect in every way, why would we even need a savior? It is that we are not much in the eyes of the world that makes the word of God that we tell so powerful.

God will use each of us to serve him in different ways. Just look to him and ask for his guidance and then accept it. He will lead you to the job he wants for you to accomplish. It will be something unique that he has set apart for you since before the foundation of the universe was created. What an awesome God we serve!

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God — that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

It seems like more and more Christians are trying to hide their faith. Christianity certainly isn’t very popular amongst the population of the world. If one wants to fit in, then talking about the Savior of the universe doesn’t seem to be the way to go.

However, keep in mind that we were not called to be popular. We were not called to fit in. We were called to spread the Good News that Jesus had given us salvation and redemption. He has given us the way to eternal life with God.

Our pastor was recently talking about how when he is traveling, he can have some really good conversations. That is, until the conversation turns to work. When he is asked what he does and he answers he is the pastor of a church, then the conversations end.

He told us he had come up with a way to continue conversations. Instead of telling what his job was, he decided what he would do is to tell the other person(s) about what his “company” does. He’ll talk of the things they do for the community, for people at risk, for individuals who are in poverty. He said that he could go on and on all day about the things that his group does for the good of man.

He thought that was a great answer. I disagree. I feel that he is being evasive. And, when you get right down to the heart of it, he is doing so to fit in and to have good conversations while he is traveling.

How could he know whether or not God has put him in the path of an individual to tell them about Jesus if it never comes up even obliquely? He can’t and he won’t if he continues with his plan.

I know that if I were traveling (at one time in my life I traveled extensively every single week) and someone talked to me in this fashion, I would still want to know the name of the company and what the individuals actual job was.

If it came out after much conversation that the individual was involved with a religion that was different than my own, I would feel like I had been lied to. It would not only stop the conversation but it would leave a bad taste in my mouth about that religion as well.

Groups that are known for this type of behavior are cults. They will discuss all the great things that they do in order to draw individuals into their web.

I know that the pastor does not have that in his mind, but I would wonder about it if someone did this to me.

In this instance, he seems to have placed the world and culture ahead of living for Jesus. I know, generally, that he is true to true theology. It just seems to have gone out of the window when it comes to conversations while traveling.

We were given a huge task and it is one that all Christians are called to do. That is, to share the story of Jesus and to tell others about what God has done for you personally.

Since the pastor stood in front of the congregation to tell us of his plan, he is, perhaps unwittingly, condoning others to put culture ahead of God.

In the life group that my husband and I recently left, one individual did not feel it necessary to ever tell anyone about Jesus. We spent a year in that group, lovingly trying to teach them how to share their faith and why it was so important to do so in order to grow spiritually and connect to God in a deeper fashion.

In the last meeting we attended, the topic came up once again, and, once again, she gave the same response.

I have to admit it was terribly disheartening. We left for other reasons but this was certainly a big part of it as well.

When the pastor stood in front of our church and told his plan, it probably condoned this type of behavior for that individual as well as any others would feel that they don’t need to ever talk about being Christians.

Don’t get me wrong, there are correct times to share faith and times when it is not correct. If you work at a company where sharing religion is prohibited, then you should either do as they ask or look for another job where you are welcome to talk about such things.

However, it seems like the Church, in general, are being pressed to change to meet the needs of the “new” culture. This culture isn’t new. Sin is the same as it was the first time Adam sinned. Turning away from Christianity also isn’t new. Most recently, it happened in the 1960’s.

At that time, if the entire Church had changed, the Jesus Freak movement would not have happened. Actually, some churches did change and we see the results today as the mainstream Protestant churches are losing more and more parishioners.

They turned their backs on God and, when their message no longer resonated with real truth, people lost interest and starting looking for other sources of spiritual experiences.

That’s where we are today. If we change our message, we will no longer grow in the countries where this occurs.

I look at the persecuted church throughout Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In those areas, Christianity is growing. The people in those areas are looking for, and finding, the only true savior, who is Jesus Christ.

Perhaps Western Civilization needs a little persecution to get back to the truth of the Gospel.

Romans 1:16-17

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

There is so much confusion in the world. These days, most people don’t seem to have a grasp on what is right and what is wrong. In the past, it was easy to distinguish between the two. People looked to the Bible to give them their moral compass. It was the map and guide to living a life for God.

Still, without knowing Jesus, the Bible may seem to be a set of rules without any understanding of how the rules were made and why we have to live by them.

In truth, the rules were given to us to show us how far we had fallen from the perfection that God had given to mankind when he created Adam and Eve. When they sinned, they lost it and had no way to get it back again.

The Bible and its rules are meant to show us that, on our own, we can never be good enough to be able to approach God. We will always sin and God cannot allow sin in his presence. He is good, sinless, holy and awesome. We are the opposite.

The way of life that the Bible gives to us is still what we should strive to do. Once we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we should turn from our sin-filled life and live the way that Jesus did.

He was the only individual who could actually live by the rules of the Bible. He was both God and man at the same time. He could have sinned, Satan did his best to tempt him and to convince him to rebel against God the father.

Jesus withstood temptation by relying on the word of God, which is written in the Bible. To every temptation that Satan sent his way, he responded by telling what the Bible had to say about it. He would not back down, he would not sin.

We, who are born-again Christians, do try to live his way. Still, we are sinners, and so we will not be able to live sinlessly in this lifetime. When we sin, which for me, is probably every day, we are to repent and ask forgiveness and ask God to help us to stop us from committing that sin.

He is always ready to forgive and to help us. All we have to do is come to him with a true spirit of repentance and a sincere desire to stop sinning.

The rest of the world doesn’t understand this and so, they think the Bible is archaic and no longer relevant. They have begun to think that they can create their own moral code.

Of course, one person’s code is not the same as another, so what is good for one is not good for all. Likewise, what is evil in one individual’s eyes is not evil in another person’s view.

That is a recipe for disaster. It creates disharmony and worse. It gives people the freedom to attack one another. Not only verbally but physically as well. They are sometimes, and increasingly so, ready to kill one another over these areas of disagreement.

From what I’ve seen, when placed against the word of God, the moral code of man is wrong. It doesn’t matter which individual it is, they can never understand the perfection of God. They may think they have come close but they are still wrong.

We are a world that is broken. Everything, except for God, is in a state of decay. Everything we think is wisdom apart from God, is foolishness in the eyes of God. All of our knowledge is flawed. There is not one of us who understands what God understands. We see the present and think that the future will be based on what we do today. Except for one thing, that is completely incorrect. God has a plan and his plan is different from anything that mankind can dream up.

The one exception that is not foolishness, is accepting Jesus as your savior. He has given us a way to receive redemption. By living sinlessly and dying for us, he became a worthy sacrifice to take all of our sin to himself and to exchange his sinlessness in its place. He did this to give us a way to have a relationship with God.

He didn’t ask us to do anything else, just to accept his freely given gift. There is nothing good enough we can do to deserve it. It is completely undeserved. That is the astounding part of this gift. It was given when we were still sinners and God’s enemy.

How many people would willingly die for an enemy who was trying to kill you? Jesus would and did. He loves you that much that he died for you to save you from the consequences of your sin. All you have to do is accept it, knowing that Jesus is God and was raised from the dead, and start to live your life, with his help, in the way that he showed us.

Use his moral code and stop trying to create one of your own. Do not think of your own way or accept any other individuals code. Jesus’ way is better. His is the best. His is the only true way to live.

Colossians 2:8

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

There was a time when the United States prided itself on having free-speech. That simple right allowed individuals to speak what they wanted. It allowed Christians to tell the world about the good news of Jesus Christ.

It also allowed atheists to speak their minds as well. It gave an open forum to other religions, too.

It seems that those days are long gone. We, as a people, face censorship every single day. Especially Christians. Those who don’t like to hear about sin and salvation have labeled it hate speech.

Not only is the government censoring us, other avenues are also limiting what is allowed to be said. If you say something that they don’t agree with, then your message is deleted and, in some cases, you are blocked from ever posting again.

While it is difficult for someone of my age to accept, those who are younger have always had it and don’t realize the dangers of censorship that await them. When those in power don’t allow individuals to speak truth, the next steps are to destroy those individuals so that truth is never spoken again.

This is exactly what happened to Jesus. He spoke out against those in power who were forcing their view of religion on the people of Israel. He told them of their hypocrisy and their lives of sin. He told them how they gave the appearance of living faithful lives while, in truth, they were sinners just like everyone else.

Those people in charge knew that the masses were listening to Jesus and that if they didn’t act and quickly, they would be toppled from their lofty positions.

At first, they tried to get Jesus to sin and when he did not, they plotted to kill him. They worked unceasingly and sent spies to listen to him to find a reason to have him put to death.

In the end, they trumped up charges against him and got one of Jesus’ own apostles to betray him. Beware of those who tell you that they agree with you but behave differently. Judas told Jesus he loved him but was willing to turn him over to death for the price of a slave.

They pushed the trial through and demanded that the Romans put Jesus to death. Although Pontius Pilate could find no fault in Jesus, he put him to death because the Jews demanded it.

If that happened to the God who created the of universe, why would any of us think that it could not happen to us?

That is where censorship leads. It leads to those with a certain mindset dictating what is good and what is not. It is based on their choices not on the choices of God. God gave us a clear view of what he expected from us.

He also let us know that we would fail and never measure up to that high standard. But, rather than let us be put to deserved death, he sent his own son to die for us and to give us forgiveness for our sins.

No man or woman is sinless, not one. Only Jesus, as God and man at the same time, was able to live a sinless life. Because we all sin, we all need forgiveness.

Isn’t it wonderful that God loved us so much that he gave us the way to get back into his presence? Man is nowhere even close to him.

Mankind will condemn you and destroy you but not forgive you.

Those who follow Christ are taught to forgive those who hurt and sin against them. It is a hard thing to learn to do and Christians fall back into old sins of hate and destruction. With God’s help, they can repent and try again to live according to his will.

Why censorship? At its most basic form, it is to keep God’s story from being told. It is Satan, as he was from our beginning, trying to destroy mankind. He lost the war when Jesus rose again from the dead. While the war is over, Satan wants to take as many people as possible to hell with him for eternity.

The Bible predicts a time toward the end of the age of the earth when teaching sound doctrine will be banned. Sometimes, it feels as if that period of time is right now. Most people only want to hear what is pleasing to them and don’t want to hear about the truth which carries conviction of their sins.

Before it is too late and you will not hear the good news of salvation because of censorship, this is the time to accept Jesus, to have your sins forgiven, to know your eternal destiny and to start living your life for him.

2 Timothy 4:1-5

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction.

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

The news regarding the coronavirus is rather scary. It is hard to tell what is fact and what is fiction. Whether or not this is a virus that will cause a pandemic, one thing is for sure, one day there will be such horrible diseases racing across the earth that a huge population of the world will die.

It’s happened previously with the Spanish ‘flu. It was a strain of influenza in the early 1900’s following World War I that took several years to cross the world. It was only stopped because so many people died, there were too few individuals who were sick and still alive to allow the virus to continue to transmit.

In those days, we traveled the world by boat. That is why it took so long to wreck its devastation.

Today, a virus can circle the globe in a matter of a day. It reminds me of a movie I have seen called “Twelve Monkeys.” In that movie, a single unhinged individual plots to spread a deadly virus and is able to do so by flying around the world in a matter of a few short days. Truth has become more than fiction.

There are so many diseases that are migrating that it really is a matter of when and not if.

There is so much fear among the people of the world. They are reacting to this latest threat as if it were immediate. It may be. It’s difficult to say as the government of China appears to be covering up the true numbers and the methods of transmission.

Still, the fear is there and it is real regardless of whether it is warranted or not. People are afraid of dying. They are afraid that their children may die. They are suspicious and want answers. Sadly, there are no answers that will satisfy them.

It’s at times like these I am very thankful to be a born-again Christian. I know that one day, perhaps sooner than later, I will die. However, I have no fear of death. My Lord and Savior has conquered true death. The body may die but the soul is eternal.

The eternal death of the soul is a separation from God and unending torment. The eternal life of the soul is to spend eternity in the presence of God and to be filled with love and joy forever.

I know that when I die, my soul will be with God for eternity. That takes the sting of death away.

The majority of the world has not accepted Christ. With their fear of death, there is also the fear of the unknown. Whether they believe in nothing or in a false god, they have no assurances of their spot in eternity.

I can understand how their fear can take over and cause them to act in ways that they would not do ordinarily. Fear will not save them. Trying to avoid death will not work forever. We all must die physically.

If fear is gripping you over this virus or anything else, the only answer to overcome fear is to know the love of Jesus. With his love will come the peace that passes our understanding.

God has this type of love and man does not. That is why we don’t understand it. We don’t understand how it can give us peace. But it exists regardless of our human and flawed understanding. The peace that comes with the knowledge of that love also exists.

I know this for a fact because I was told over two years ago that I was going to die that day. I was at peace and knew that when my eyes closed here, I would see Jesus for the first time. I didn’t long to die, but I wasn’t afraid of it, either.

God spared me but I know that it was only for the moment. However, I know that my place in heaven is a sure thing and it is only a matter of time before I go to be with my God.

If you are afraid and want to feel the peace of God, look to the love of Jesus. He was both man and God at the same time. He lived and died and rose again to give you a way to obtain forgiveness for your sins and to make you righteous in God’s eyes.

All you have to do is to accept him as Lord and Savior. Ask him to give you the gift of his forgiveness. Know that he rose again from the dead and because of that, you will do so, too, one day. Then start learning to live in the way that he did. Learn to follow Jesus. He will give you his peace and will take away your fears.

Isaiah 41:10

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

What has happened to people who can be relied upon to keep their word? It’s gotten to the point where there are very few individuals that I feel I can trust.

I don’t think I’m alone in that feeling. I imagine that most individuals feel that the circle of their trusted confidants is getting ever smaller.

I remember, when I was younger, I felt trust for most people that I knew. Of course, that was not a wise way to live. I was constantly having my trust broken. Once, I lost trust in someone, I have found that I could never fully trust them again.

More recently, I am finding that I approach individuals as untrustworthy. I feel that they must now earn my trust. I might learn to care about them more easily but my ability to trust my fellow man has been shattered.

I always look at someone and think, if I tell them something real about myself, will I live to regret it? I haven’t enjoyed this about myself but it seems to be the way most of us now feel.

I have had a hard time writing these weekly articles because I expose so much of my feelings and of my past. It is the exact type of information that I don’t like to tell people of my acquaintance.

I write it here because God leads me to do so. Often, after I have written the article, I look at it and think, Why am I telling so much about what is so important to me?

There is only one answer. God is using my past to help other people. He will do what I am so unwilling to do on my own.

Even when I feel so uncomfortable with what I have exposed of my life, I don’t delete it. I know that I have prayed and God has led me to what he wants me to say.

In my experience, serving God is not easy. It is not comfortable. It is not something that I even look forward to doing. However, it is something that fulfills something inside me that has always been empty before.

While, in my mind, I may chafe at the thought of trusting total strangers with my story, I am thankful that what I have experienced in life has not been in vain.

If one person can be helped by reading of my trials, tribulations, successes and oh, so many failures, then it has been worth it all.

I have to learn, daily, to trust that God is leading me the right way. It is something we all should be doing.

Sin is always easy. Bad habits don’t have to be learned. Learning to turn away from sin is hard and most of us fail over and over again. Creating good habits is very difficult. It’s one of the reasons why New Year’s resolutions fail most of the time.

I’ve prayed that God would give me more acquaintances and friends whom I can trust. It seems like I have been praying for the wrong thing. A pastor once told us something that I completely understand.

He said, people are people are people are people. They will disappoint every single time.

What I came away from that sermon finally understanding was that trusting people will always be fraught with problems. The trust that I need to learn, that all of us need to learn, is that we need to learn to trust in God. It isn’t easy but one thing is definite, he will never fail me and he will never ever break my trust.

Psalms 91:1-2

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

It’s easy to get tired of waiting for something that you feel that God has promised you. Whether it is a promise to all Christians or to you specifically, it doesn’t seem to matter. Waiting is hard. Sometimes it seems as if our waiting is in vain and the time we have spent waiting is wasted.

We are an impatient people. We want what we want right now. We seem to have lost the ability to slow down and watch for God to move. We want to help him along.

We aren’t really all that different from those in the past. If you think about Abraham and Sarah, you will see what I mean.

God, himself, had promised Abraham that he, Abraham, would have a child by his wife Sarah. It seemed laughable to both of them because they were very old.

So, Sarah grew tired of waiting and feeling like God needed a little assistance, she gave her maid Hagar to Abraham so that Hagar would become pregnant and Sarah would adopt the child as her own.

Abraham didn’t object, so he must have been tired of waiting as well. Hagar did become pregnant and gave birth to a son, Ishmael.

Those actions created dissension between Sarah and Hagar and, later, to the descendants of both of these women.

You see, even though Abraham and Sarah had taken matters into their own hands and ignored God’s promise, God did not forget his promise.

When God makes a promise, it is forever. He will not change his mind on a whim. The child of promise was given to Sarah when she had her son Issac. He was the child that God had promised whose descendant would someday be a blessing to the entire world. That promise was fulfilled when Jesus was born, lived, died and rose again.

There are other examples of times, in the Bible, when people of God did not follow what God asked them to do. So we aren’t unique in how we are. It feels like it sometimes, though. It is the way of man. We always make ourselves the center of the universe and don’t bother to look at others. We don’t see that they are feeling exactly the same way we do.

I’ve had problems with waiting. Not only with God but with whatever I want to get done. Rather than wait and have others help me, I tend to try to do the work all on my own.

While it may get the job done, there are problems that arise. Not only do I work myself too hard but the other people who might have learned in the process are denied the chance because I wasn’t willing to wait on their learning curve. If I were their teacher, I would wait but if not, I grew impatient very quickly.

That can end up with lots of problems down the line. Not on the scale of what is going on between the descendants of Issac and Ishmael but problems none the same.

Learning to wait on God takes patience. God has a plan and a timeline and it is up to him when events will unfold. He didn’t even tell his son, Jesus, when the church would be gathered to heaven. Jesus, though, has been waiting patiently on God to let his plan come to completion.

I am trying to learn from this example. I may never have the patience of Jesus but I can do better than I have in the past. I just have to remind myself that God is there and he is watching over me. He will deliver his promises at exactly the right time.

Lamentations 3:24-26

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.

It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the Lord.