Do you take a short or long term view of life? My word even acknowledges that sin offers pleasure for a season, but the end thereof is still death. Yet you don’t have to wait that long to see the consequences of it. Right decisions are enduring.
Have you ever been betrayed by a friend? It is devastating to have someone you trust turn against you. I have experienced this myself. Yet this can happen with neither you nor they being aware of it.
Do you ever feel that you are under attack? You have a real adversary. He complained that I set a hedge of protection around Job that thwarted his attacks. I reduced the level of protection, but in a measured and limited way for a specific interval.
My wife, Mary, does not have the freedom that I do in hearing our Lord's voice. So we do exercises periodically to hone our skills. We quiet ourselves in the presence of Jesus and ask Him the same question and then write down what we hear. Here is one of our sessions:
Lord, please tell us about the very great numbers of people who were killed by Your people and others as recorded in the Scriptures. The numbers are overwhelming. Did You cause them to perish, allow them to perish, or what?
Have you ever heard someone say, ‘I can’t imagine a God who would allow suffering like that’? The real problem here is trying to make me fit their image. You were made in my image, not I in yours. You cannot reduce me to a level of human understanding.
What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Have you ever heard about someone making a deal with the devil for their soul? Do you imagine that this is a formal transaction with documents and signatures in blood?
You see the intense commercial activity and indulgent excess that occurs at Christmas. Have you ever heard people lament about this and express a desire to return to the true meaning of Christmas? Have you ever said this yourself?
When a child receives a gift, what is their first response? They want to play with it or put it to use immediately. Yet on special gift-giving occasions adults will tell them to put it aside because there are other gifts to open.
This Sunday is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday!
Do you think of your car as a commodity? Or as part of your identity? These positions represent two extremes, but most people lean one way or the other. If you think of your car merely in functional terms perhaps you feel a stronger attachment to what you eat or what you wear.
