These are uncertain times. I have been thinking for several weeks about what is happening in our country right now. Politics are getting meaner and more sleazy by the year. Our government has become something strange, something distasteful to us. More intrusive. More demanding. Nothing like we have known in the past.
The world stage is fragile. Civil unrest is rampant in parts of the world with dictators raping and killing their people. Financial markets seem ready to implode. Most of us feel totally at a loss to do anything about it. It seems that a fog has moved in and clouded our sense of well-being and security. There seems to be a spirit of confusion and instability. We (at least I) feel like something foreboding is on the horizon. You'd think that people, especially Christians, would turn to the help of God, as in times past. But I think the post-Christian culture we live in veils this help.
Even the church seems to have lost it's purpose and it's way in the midst of a "politically correct" culture. There is no shortage of programs. Many of them are good. There is good-faith effort to want to help Christians in their growth and walk with God. But the "man in the pew" (if he/she is even present) seems largely unaffected. He or she can sort of "take it or leave it." Concern for a lost and shaken world is thin and the most powerful tool available to us, prayer, is the last thing on anyone's mind...not sure it really works anyway. We do that in which we truly believe.
THEN THE SENSELESS SHOOTINGS IN AURORA, COLORADO BREAKS POWERFULLY IN ON THIS LETHARGIC LANDSCAPE...and we ask WHY?
I mentioned these things to a pastor recently. He told me to read 2 Chronicles 15. I did. There was no voice, no message of hope in the land of Israel. Israel was without a "teaching priest" and the result was was "turmoil" and confusion. Sounds a lot like our nation, our world today.
King Asa did the only thing that could be done. He called for a sacred assembly of the people for prayer. That is what we need today. God has to be broken-hearted over the state of a once God-honoring nation. The church needs revival and the nation, the world, needs an awakening of overwhelming proportions. UNCERTAIN TIMES CALL FOR A CERTAIN HOPE.
There is HOPE in God. He has the answer to the dilemmas of our day. The Church must get on it's knees before God and plead for revival. That starts with me. I need to be on my knees in repentance.
