And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.
There are some days when you just want to pull the covers over your head or stick your head in the sand. Life is not fair and events keep popping up to reinforce it. In the last two weeks, I have attended a funeral of a neighbor whose 32-year-old daughter collapsed and died from a rare lung disease, one very good friend is facing a double mastectomy on Friday and another has a biopsy in a week, one of the musicians who plays bass guitar at our church was attacked by his own pit bull and has lost both arms and is still in a coma fighting for his life, and a young mother was recently diagnosed as bi-polar and struggling to cope with the darkness, as is her family.
What is going on, Lord?
My daughter turns the news off so that my grandgirlies don’t watch the murder and mayhem all over the world. London is battling destruction from young people just because they can. There are hot spots all over the world, some more visible than others.
And then, in last Sunday’s sermon, our pastor reported, “In a national survey last year by the California-based Barna Group, 61 percent of young adults in their 20s said that they had attended church at some point during their teen years but had since disengaged. They no longer actively attend church, read the Bible or pray.”
What is going on, Lord?
Are you a half-full or half-empty kind of person? Normally, I’m optimistic but if I depended on my feelings or ability to change any of this, I would be sorely mistaken and disappointed. I can fret and stew over events in my life prompting no change and only bringing me down. Rather, the antidote is to focus on the One who can make things right and with that focus, He promises peace.
Lord, you know what is going on and I may not choose the same results, but I don’t have the heavenly perspective. My part is to trust that He who is in me is greater than he that is in the world.