2016
Fears
Are you sitting all
alone in a cold dark room, figuratively at least, and dreading the coming year?
What do you fear the most? Is it the Isis, coming nearer and nearer? Maybe they
have already invaded your town and you wonder how long it will be until you are
singled out. That’s a fear that could surely grip one’s heart and make them
tremble.
Or maybe your
worries are in in a different line. Maybe you are wondering when will you or
your spouse find work. It has been so many months now. How long will you be able
to put bread on the table, pay the bills, keep up with the rent? Will you end
up on the street?
Maybe there is
discord in the home, or drinking, or violence. Maybe you feel like you are to
blame and you feel so guilty, but don’t know how to stop. Will the coming year
be any better?
Maybe a loved one
died. Maybe tragically, maybe through natural causes, maybe it was suicide. To
say the future looks bleak without them just doesn’t cut it. It looks awful,
just plain awful.
And now it’s 2016 or
soon will be, and it feels like the weight of the world is crushing you down.
You feel like those
soldiers long ago who were heading home to Italy but there were mountains to
cross on foot, and the blizzard surrounded them. The climb seemed endless and
was getting continually harder as they struggled through the cold, deepening
snow.
What happened then?
Many of those mighty warriors were growing faint of heart so what did Hannibal
do? He found a good look out point and rallied them all together with shouts of
encouragement.
The message was
simple, brief…and wonderful. Over these steeps lay Italy, their sunny homeland
where loved ones were waiting for them. His words gave them the stamina to
continue, but do your know what? Our Captain, the Captain of the Lord’s Army
offers even more.
He says that after
these struggles and trials our Heavenly Home is waiting us. That is glorious,
without a doubt, but sometimes the storms of life make it hard to set our hopes
on something so distant so He does one better that that ancient general so long
ago.
Listen now, this is
important. If you are fainting beneath your heavy load of --life, call out to
Him. Keep calling and He will carry you. I promise. Maybe you won’t feel any
different immediately, but I promise you if you keep trusting Him He will
comfort you. How do I know? Because He’s helped me.
Even tonight.
I’ll remember you in
my prayers.
