“How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psalm 13:1)
— A struggler laments to God

“I will never leave you or forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)
— God responds to all seekers

Here’s a couple of profoundly simple thoughts: Life is not always fair, and life is unpredictable in spite of our efforts to make it so.

We yearn for order; we get chaos. We codify human behavior; we turn rebellious. We try to manage time; we find it’s too soon passing. We assume we’ll be healthy; we encounter illness. We trust materialism to fulfill us; we discover it’s all easily lost.

Not a very upbeat state of this world’s existence, is it? Ken Cope sees it like this: “We live in a fallen world, full of disappointment and loss, and we often feel empty and unfulfilled and incredibly alone. But while God is not there to fix our problems and make the pain go away, he is always waling beside us. In the ongoing journey of life, we are given the opportunity to know God and ourselves through the process of lamenting and grieving.” (from the book A Sacred Sorrow by Michael Card)

Lamenting and grieving? Is that allowed in 21st Century America? Is that biblical? Is it spiritually permissible?

It may be counter-cultural, even in some churches, but lamenting is truly biblical. Bible readers find that faithful followers of Yahweh all encountered seasons of distress. And more than a few of them openly, verbally, took their distresses and disgusts right to the ears of their God.

They knew, they loved, they trusted in a God who was not immobile, not impotent, not distant. They knew God as one knows an actual loving parent, one open to all expressions: praise and dismay, thanksgiving and frustration. And they are called faithful.

So when life crashes in on us, when dreams shatter into shards, when the doctor delivers startling news, when the house is destroyed by fire, when the stable job is lost, when the friend become an enemy, when lack of control depresses our spirits, when the world is overrun with evil; be faithful. Go to the Psalms, particularly the questioning ones, the laments not read in Sunday morning worship services.

Find a trusted faithful companion. Pray with brutal honesty. Unload the burden, with all its ugly sentiments. There is hope to be found in voiced despair.

And know, truly know, that our God is one who will always live up to this promise: I will never leave you nor forsake you.

— Copied from The Sandusky Sower

“The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not” (Matthew 23:2,3).

Jesus offered those words of warning regarding the strictest of the Jewish sects. He was not complimentary. It is hypocritical not to practice what one preaches. The Pharisees were notorious for demanding of others what they were unwilling to do themselves.

Francis Bacon once said: “It is not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain, but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned; not what we preach but what we practice that makes us Christian.”

Our life reflects our relationship. We can talk a good religion and still make a miserable failure of it. The apostle Paul instructed Christians in the church at Philippi: “Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ: so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27). What we preach and what we practice must be the same.

Many people have been “turned off” to New Testament Christianity by the inconsistent practices of “professed” Christians. Christianity isn’t something we do just on Sunday. It involves a life of holiness, godliness, and righteousness consistently lived every day. Christians are not perfect. We do, however, have a perfect Savior whose life and example we seek to imitate (1 Peter 2:21). We may not always do a good job of it, but we are trying.

Yes, there are some who claim to be Christians who, like the Pharisees, don’t walk the talk. Please don’t judge us all by them.

Copied from the Sixth and Washington Streets Bulletin, Marietta, Ohio
Submitted by Roger & Rita Fortney

The road to hell is paved with good temptations.

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.

Teaching kids to count is good,
but teaching them what counts is best.

To the world you might one person,
but to one person you might be the world.

Life is like a onion;
you peel off one layer at a time and sometimes we weep.

Learn from the mistakes of others.
You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.

Christ my Savior, Christ my friend,
Christ my treasure without end;
Christ when waves of sorrow roll,
Christ the comfort of my soul.

Christ when all around should fail,
Christ when enemies prevail;
Christ when false accusers rise,
Christ my solace in the skies.

Christ when days are dark and drear,
Christ when all around is clear;
Christ when all the earth is gone,
Christ my portion on the throne.

Christ at home and Christ abroad,
Christ my company on the road;
Christ in sickness, Christ in health,
Christ in poverty and wealth.

Christ who once on earth has trod,
Christ the blessed Son of God;
Christ for now and Christ for then,
Christ my Savior and my friend.

Author Unknown