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The word “savings” is becoming an extinct word, and budgeting is almost a comic tragedy. Twisters and floods are destroying or irrevocably altering people’s lives, homes, and livelihoods. Violence and destruction are cropping up like measles everywhere in the world. War and civil unrest are commonplace. America will never be able rid itself of its staggering national debt nor the epithet as “The Great Satan” to those ideologues that violence settles everything. World economies are juggling to make ends meet. Morals and ethics are shifting like sandbars in a troubled ocean. We are nervous, fidgety, concerned, and downright scared of what the future may hold for ourselves and for our nation.
With each bad news is like another layer of mental fatigue settling in over our waning optimism. We are keeping our chin up but wondering how much more bad news we can sustain before our optimism collapses under the weight and strain of any more bad news. We have to constantly fight off from becoming negative, cynical, and pessimistic for that is the path to losing sight of hope and falling into a sense of hopelessness or despair. In short, we feel helpless to do anything about it and are bummed out and bitter over the whole mess.
Reality check #1: a new world order is quickly emerging from these upheavals like the tremors before a major earthquake, and it is nothing but bad news for the inhabitants of the earth who don’t know Christ. The world we once knew is no more, reality check #2.
There is some good news in light of this doom and gloom for those who love the Lord! There are several blessings in this Psalm that come to the man who fears God and who delights greatly in His commandments (Psa 112:1). I want to briefly focus our attention on only one of those blessings – being unafraid of receiving bad news.
Whether we hear bad news or are in throes of bad news, we can be strong and steadfast in the faith because of who is the object of our faith and trust – the LORD. But this “unmoved by the bad news” kind of faith doesn’t happen overnight. It only happens for those who choose to fear God and to delight greatly in His commandments (Psa 112:1, NKJV). If we don’t flood our hearts with fear and delight in the LORD, something else will take its place, like bad news, that will surely overtake and rattle our faith. And when that happens, we know where the baby goes – out with the bathwater!
I want to make your day by reminding you of some very good news. In fact it's great news! God is on the throne (Psa 47:8; 97:1; 99:1; 146:10; Heb 4:16), and absolutely nothing enters our lives without His permission (Rom 8:28; cf Job 1:12; Rom 8:38-39)! Nothing! He promised never to leave us nor forsake us (Heb 13:5). He loves us with an everlasting love (Jer 31:3; Rom 5:8). And the next great eschatological event on the horizon is the rapture of His saints which leaves nothing to be fulfilled for that to happen!
"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thess 4:17).
The rapture thrills my soul, but I sure like that last part, "so shall we ever be with the Lord." Once that happens we don't have to put up with any more of this insane stuff taking place on the earth! But wouldn't it be naïve of us to think that we are immune to bad news until then (Job 2:10)? When bad news knocks on our door, we have one of two choices; we can choose to trust in the One who only has the power to make Romans 8:28 a living reality in our lives, or we can go south with the bad news.
"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thess 4:17).
The rapture thrills my soul, but I sure like that last part, "so shall we ever be with the Lord." Once that happens we don't have to put up with any more of this insane stuff taking place on the earth! But wouldn't it be naïve of us to think that we are immune to bad news until then (Job 2:10)? When bad news knocks on our door, we have one of two choices; we can choose to trust in the One who only has the power to make Romans 8:28 a living reality in our lives, or we can go south with the bad news.
"I don't know about the future, but I know who holds the future." --Dorothy Louise Alderman (my mom)
I don't know about you, but for me, that's certainly some good news to deposit in the heart bank, right now! <><
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I don't know about you, but for me, that's certainly some good news to deposit in the heart bank, right now! <><
