Are world events troubling you?
Kathy on Jan 16th 2009
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This devotion is from a precious sister in Christ Jesus and I felt it worth reading and heeding…
“Well, here we are on the verge of another new year. Many of us had thought surely the Lord would have come by now, seeing how base the world is becoming daily. He has chosen to wait though, and I’m sure He has His reasons.As I turn on the radio, or read the news my mind is bombarded with bad news. The economy is terrible, millions of people out of work, unemployment benefits running out, health care becoming an issue with the new administration that has been elected. Our senses are overloaded with worry and our “hearts are made to tremble.”
I sat at a table not long ago with some Christian friends of mine, and the economy was the topic of discussion. I heard talk of how social security would run out before we could even be eligible to receive it, how health care would be unaffordable, how we were headed for trouble on every hand. One person spoke up and said, “What are we going to do?” Well, before I even thought I replied, “We will have to live by our faith! What a concept for Christians!” The table fell silent for a moment, and then the conversation continued in the same vein it had been. I was a bit troubled by this, for several reasons. For weeks I too had been caught up in the hype and constant talk of all the trouble with the world today. I listened to the radio, read the news, and I worried. One day, however, as I was cleaning my kitchen and had the radio on to one of the major stations telling all the bad things we had to look forward to in the coming year, that “still small voice” that I recognize so well spoke to my heart. He said, “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are of faith, whatsoever things are of good report… if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.” I immediately shut off the radio. No wonder I had been so depressed in recent days. I was “thinking on” all the wrong things! I was feeding the worry and starving the faith! Instead of reading the news, I should have been reading the Good News, fortifying my heart with His promises. One morning I was about half awake, when I heard a voice say, “There will always be light in Goshen.” I came awake and wondered what that was supposed to mean. For days I walked around with that sentence fragment in my mind, “light in Goshen, light in Goshen”…what was that? Obsessed with it, I began to research. I was amazed to learn that when Joseph brought his family to Egypt to protect them from the famine, they settled in a place called Goshen. It was the very best land in Egypt, a fruitful place. Years later when the plagues came, that land was untouched by all the trouble. Finally, when the gross darkness covered Egypt, there was light in the dwellings of God’s people! I stopped and marveled at the thing that the Lord was showing me. Our world looks pretty dark right now, and it is covered with many plagues. Unemployment, crime, sicknesses, economic crises. In all, our world is suffering from gross darkness of its own. The Lord, however, is our Light! He has promised that whatsoever we ask in His name, He will do it. Now, it may not be in our time frame, on our time clock, but that doesn’t mean He is not working on our behalf! He said, “Be anxious for nothing.” An old wise saint told me years ago, “to worry closes God’s hand.” I have tried to remember that when I find myself in a situation that brings me great anxiety. I don’t always succeed, but I try! I was encouraged to know that no matter how gross the darkness of the world, nor how bad the situation becomes, He will always light our path! There will be light in our Goshen, our fruitful place, in the church of the Living God. This is no time to be sitting back expecting the worst; it’s time to be standing up and proclaiming the Light! He knows the way that we take, and He will not let us stumble in the darkness. He is faithful and loves us beyond measure. Take comfort in that!” Blessings, |
