Three year old Silas has learned to pray, and often sits at the table, eagerly clasping his little hands together, looking back and forth at his parents, hoping they will ask him to say the blessing. 

              “Do you want to say the prayer?” his daddy asks, as if it weren’t obvious, and he gets a big nod and off we go.  It’s never about the meal.  To him it’s about talking to God and saying thank you for something, for anything, for whatever happens to be on his mind.

              “Hey God!”  Read that the way an excited child would greet his grandparents, not the way a New Yorker would yell, “Hey Mac!”

              “Thank you for sisters,” although he has none, but one of his little friends does, so he wants to mention it.

              “Thank you for blue, and red, and yellow,” the colors of the containers he puts his blocks in.  He doesn’t complain about having to pick up his toys.  He thanks God for something to put them in, and that’s the one that really made me think.

              I wonder how many of our complaints could be expressed as thanks with just a little thought.  Dealing with rush hour traffic?  Thank God you have a car to drive through it in.  Complaining about the stack of ironing?  Thank God you have that many clothes to wear.  Griping a little about picking up your husband’s shoes?  Thank God he is alive and well enough to leave them in the middle of the floor.

              I thought about this again yesterday when I was blowing off the carport.  We didn’t have one for years, and sometimes I think that all it did for me was give me something else to keep clean.  But last week when one of our usual summer gully washers came through, I could unload the groceries and stay dry. 

              Then I came in and heaved a sigh at the extra dirty floor.  That happened because we saved enough money to buy a new vanity for the bathroom and the plumber tracked in sand going in and out. 

              Stop and think today about the things you complain about.  How many are caused by blessings you could have thanked God for instead?  How many extra chores do you have because God has provided you a home and a family?  I never had to wash diapers until I had babies.  Do you think for one minute I would have given them back? 

              If ever anyone had something to grumble about, it was Daniel when the other two presidents and the 120 satraps tricked the king into making the law against praying to anyone other than him.  How did he react instead?  And when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his chamber toward Jerusalem) and he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Daniel 6:10.  Surely if Daniel could say thank you at a time like that, we can in this relatively easy time in history.

              God is patient with us as we daily grumble our way through a life He has blessed in thousands of ways.  You have to go to work?  These days especially, be grateful for a job.  Gas prices too high?  You’re still buying it, aren’t you? 

              Maybe we should be a little more like a three year old.  “Hey God!  (I’m so excited to talk to you!)  Thank you for all you have done for me, for the things you have given me that I don’t deserve and forget to be grateful for.  For all those extra chores, because they mean you have blessed me beyond measure.  For all my pet peeves, because it means I am able to be up and around and go to those places where they happen.  For the fact that I have to work so hard to lose weight, because it means I have plenty to eat.  For people who get on my nerves, because it means I have friends and family and neighbors and brothers and sisters in Christ—I am not alone.”

              Today look at everything you gripe about and find the blessing.  You will be amazed--and probably a little ashamed.  And maybe those gripes will go away, for at least a little awhile.
 
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you, 1 Thes 5:18.
 
Dene Ward

I did a little research one day and discovered that the Liberty Bell, the bell that rang on July 4, 1776 when this country declared its independence from England, received its celebrated crack on July 8, 1835, while tolling the death of Chief Justice John Marshall.  Then I did a little more research and found nine more stories about what caused the crack, and even evidence that this was not the first one.  I do have a small model of that bell among my dinner bell collection and there is the crack for all to see.  It’s probably more famous for that crack than it is for celebrating freedom.
 
           I thought then of another “crack,” one far more important.  And Jesus cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom…Matt 27:50-51.  The veil in the Temple that separated the holy place from the most holy place also separated men from God.  Only one man could go through that veil and that only once a year, the high priest, Lev 16.  God “dwelt” behind that veil and man was not allowed access under penalty of death.

            Rather than nine different stories about how the veil of the Temple tore, only one is recorded.  The fact that it tore “from top to bottom” means someone had to be in the anteroom to see it, perhaps several “someones,” and that would have been the regular priests going about their daily duties.  Imagine their feelings as the accompanying earthquake began, and they watched an unseen hand rip that sacred curtain.  Imagine their terror as they wondered if they would die now that it hung open and they could see inside.  I think it is likely they were the very ones who later accepted the new teaching.  And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Act 6:7.  It would have taken something monumental for those men to give up their livelihoods, their heritage, and their sacred privilege as priests of Jehovah.

            We all know that the rip in that veil symbolized the new access we now have to God.  Since we then have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God… let us draw near with boldness to the throne of grace…Heb 4:12,14.  This access was not given only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles, as prophesied in Isa 25:6,7.  “The veil that is over all nations” is “swallowed up.” 

            The Liberty Bell bears this inscription:  “Proclaim liberty throughout the land,” Lev 25:10.  We have a far more important liberty, the right to approach God when we need him, the privilege to call him Father and enjoy his care and protection and company! Adam lost that privilege a long time ago, and man suffered for it for thousands of years.  Don’t take it for granted now.
 
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Heb 10:19-22
 
Dene Ward

One of the prettiest views of our property is coming down the shady lane late in the afternoon as the western sun sets behind the tall pines.  The live oaks spread their arms over the house and carport and most of the yard, dripping with Spanish moss and providing an even deeper shade over the lush green grass.  It isn’t fancy by any means.  It isn’t the grandeur of mountains and valleys that dwarf the human spirit.  It isn’t the sculptured and manicured lawn of a great mansion.  But it’s homey and comfortable and inviting.
              All that moss is part of the charm.  We’ve had people try to tell us to remove it.  “It’s a parasite,” they tell us, a common misconception.  Actually, it’s a bromeliad, related to the pineapple.  According to the Sarasota County Forestry Division, Spanish moss, the beard of ancient live oaks, does not jeopardize the trees.  It does not steal nutrients.  It is an air plant that prefers to perch on horizontal limbs like those of live oaks, which provide more access to sunlight and water than vertical limbs.  It processes its food from the rainwater that runs off the leaves and limbs of the trees.  Nothing is stolen from the tree.  Just look around.  Moss even hangs from power lines and fences, and it seems to prefer dead trees to live ones.  So much for the myth that it’s a parasite.
              However, the moss can become so thick that it shades the leaves of the trees from the sunshine, the thing necessary for photosynthesis.  During the rainy season, thick moss can become so heavy that it breaks branches. 
              I think Spanish moss must be a little like worry.  Let’s dismiss the notion that any worry at all is a sin.  Paul talks about “the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches,” 2 Cor 11:28.  He may not use the word “worry,” but that is exactly what he is talking about—anxiety, care, concern, the “daily pressure.”  Sometimes that emotion is legitimate and we become petty when we start forbidding certain words while accepting the feelings as long as we call it something else.
              Yet worldly care and worry can rob us of our spirituality and our usefulness to God.  It can make us “unfruitful,” Mark 4:19.  It can “entangle” us in worldly pursuits, 2 Tim 2:4.  It can tell tales about our hearts with misplaced priorities, Luke 12:22,23, doubt, Luke 12:29, and lack of faith, Matt 6:30.  All of that can choke the word right out of us and when trials come, instead of trusting a God who loves us and provides our needs, we may break from the stress.
              If you have trouble with worry, camp awhile in Matthew 6.  Don’t you understand, Jesus asks, that life is more than food and clothing, v 25?  Don’t you know that God loves you even more than he loves the birds and the flowers, vv 26,30?  Are you so arrogant that you think your worry will fix anything, v 27?  Don’t you have more faith than the heathens, vv 30,32?  Jesus always has a way of laying it on the line, doesn’t he?
              While there may be legitimate concerns, things we pray about even in agony as Jesus did in Gethsemane, and there may be good things that occupy our minds, like our care for the spread of the gospel and the growth of the church and the spiritual progress of our children, don’t let the trivial things, the things of this life that you can’t do anything about anyway, become such a heavy burden that you break under its weight.  Rid yourself of the moss that robs you of the Light.  “Let not your hearts be troubled,” Jesus said, John 14:27.  He came to bring us peace instead.
 
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. John 14:27
 
Dene Ward

On June 20, 1963, the world suddenly realized what a powder keg it had made of itself and established a hot line.  This bilateral agreement created a direct link between the heads of state of the United States and the Soviet Union specifically to prevent a nuclear war triggered by accident, miscalculation, or surprise attack.

            The hot line consisted of 1) two terminal points with teletype equipment; 2) a full time duplex wire telegraph circuit; and 3) a full time duplex radiotelegraph circuit.  The redundancy provided backup in case one communication method, or even two, did not work in the heat of the crisis.  The two sides also agreed that the system would not be used for anything less than an emergency.  Any sort of regular use would degrade its effectiveness.  If it was “in case of emergency only,” when it rang, someone would answer.  No one on the other end would shrug and say, “It’s probably nothing.”

            All this made me think of the hot line we have with God, a link made possible by Christ, who tore down the veil separating us from God.  It also made me grateful for the differences.

            Our hot line is not for emergencies only.  Our regular use of it does not make it less effective.  If anything, it makes it more effective.  We are more likely to use it, and God is more likely to listen to someone with whom He has a close relationship.  I can find instances in the Old Testament where God deliberately ignored the prayers of those who only called “in case of emergency,” Zech 7:13 among them.  And it is come to pass that, as [my prophet] cried and they would not hear, so they shall cry and I will not hear, said Jehovah of hosts.  God knows when our repentance is real and when it is simply a matter of fearing the consequences of our sin.

            Our hot line does not need any back up measures.  It will always work.  The line is never busy.  There is always someone there, not just an answering machine or an automated menu.  God loves His children and wants us to talk with Him.  He wants us to realize how much we depend upon Him, and ask for whatever we need, even whatever we want whether we really need it or not.  And He wants us to trust Him enough to ask over and over if we don’t receive the desired results immediately.  How we use our hot line tells tales about the state of our faith.

            That “red telephone,” as it has often been depicted in the movies, has indeed been used at least twice that I could find record of, twice in about 20 years if I remember correctly.   How many times have you used yours in just the last 20 days?
 
As for me I will call upon God and Jehovah will save me.  Evening and morning and at noonday will I complain and moan; and he will hear my voice, Psalm 55:16,17.
 
Dene Ward

In the past few years I have found myself fighting sleepless nights on more than one occasion.  Keith always tells me that when that happens to him, he sings hymns in his mind until he falls back asleep.  I have yet to find a better thing to do, unless it is praying, but often they are the same.  How many songs can you find in your hymnals that are nothing more than prayers set to music?  I have a feeling that most of David’s psalms follow that same pattern.

            I recently found a phrase in the middle of a scripture that made me smile, even though the context didn’t.  Still, I think pulling that phrase out of its context is not wresting the scriptures in this case.  “God my Maker, who gives songs in the night,” Job 35:10.  I wonder how many times those hymns popped into our heads because a loving God sent them our way to help calm us and reassure us.

            The righteous sing for joy on their beds, Psalm 149:5.  After I found that verse, I began to wonder why “bed” was particularly mentioned, just as “night” was in Job. 

            Perhaps it is a metaphoric allusion.  We take to our beds when we are seriously ill.  I can get up and do things when I have a cold, but if I am really sick, I am in bed.  People who are nearing death are usually in bed, in fact, we call it the “death bed.”  In times of worry, when we try to sleep, we find ourselves tossing and turning in bed, just as I have done so often recently.  Why would we be inclined to sing at those times?

            Isn’t it obvious?  If we are God’s children, we have hope, we have a foundation of joy in our lives that keeps us grounded, and that joy often shows itself in song.  Even in prison, having been beaten and wondering what the morning would bring, Paul and Silas sang hymns of praise “at midnight,” Acts 16:25.  They weren’t in a comfortable bed, but the “nighttime” of trouble was upon them.  Even from childhood, aren’t we all just a little afraid of the dark?

            Do not think it strange that songs often come to us during these times.  Our God does not leave us desolate.  He gives us songs in the “night,” songs of comfort, songs of hope, songs of praise for his grace and love, songs of encouragement, songs of edification and even chastisement.  Those songs would not come to your mind without a God who cared enough not only to send his Son, but to send you songs in the times you need them most, in the night time of sorrow and fear and pain. 

            Often the grace of God comes in a song that keeps going round and round in your mind.  It’s up to you to sing it.
 
By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. Psa 42:8
 
Dene Ward

I remember once when the boys came asking for something.  I don’t remember what it was, I just remember that the way they asked made it obvious they did not expect to receive a positive response from me.  It probably cost money, which was always in short supply in those years.  I vaguely remember that their father and I had already discussed this thing, and had decided it was worth it, that we would just sacrifice in another area.  So I thoroughly enjoyed answering in an offhanded way, “Sure.”

            Their hanging heads snapped back, their eyes widened, and their jaws dropped.  It was a moment before they could utter, “Reeeeeeally?”  Being able to give them what they wanted so much was a wonderful feeling.  Although I am certain that most children doubt this, most parents want to give their children everything their hearts desire.  They just have enough sense not to. 

            Sometimes I think we approach God in exactly the same way my boys came to me that day.  We have already decided what God will and won’t do.  Or maybe it’s that we have decided what God can and cannot do—a far more serious crime.  When we know the doctors have said the illness is terminal, for some reason we don’t think we can ask God to heal.  God can do whatever he wants to do, regardless of what the doctors say.  Don’t we believe that?

            Put yourself in the place of those Christians in Acts 12.  They were all in danger.  Herod had put Peter and James in prison, and had already killed James.  When he saw the public opinion polls swing in his direction, he planned to kill Peter too.  Yet those Christians risked life and limb to gather at Mary’s house and pray for him.  If it were us, I am afraid we would have prayed that his death be swift so he wouldn’t suffer.  We would have already given up on his life being spared. 

            After my first surgeries, the doctor told me it was the first time anyone had performed that operation on a nanophthalmic eye without losing the eye.  I am glad he didn’t tell me that beforehand.  It isn’t just the extra fear I would have felt.  I am afraid it would have changed my prayers because I, too, grew up with the idea that you must not ask God for the impossible.

            Mark records Jesus saying, Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that
you have received it and it will be yours, 11:24.  Did you catch that?  “Believe that you have received it.”  Your faith should be such that you know he has already said yes—asking for it is simply a formality. 

            Jesus died so we could boldly come before the throne of God (Heb 4:16).  Too many times we come before God with a hangdog expression, a forlorn hope that he will have any time to spare for us and that our requests will be too petty to catch his attention.  We remind him how many outs he has, we lower our expectations to something that won’t be too hard for him, and we always add a “Thy will be done,” not because of our humility and acceptance of his will, but because, like my boys that day, we really don’t expect to get a yes and our weak faith needs a prop.  Just exactly how much more insulting do we think we can be to our Divine Creator?

            When you pray today, pray “nothing doubting” (James 1:6), and remember that with God “all things are possible” (Matt 19:26).  Think about the gift he has already given you—his Son.  Why in the world do we think he would withhold anything else?
 
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him, 1 John 5:14,15.
 
Dene Ward                    

Who hasn’t stood in a grocery aisle and heard a child demand that her mother buy something?  Not even asks with a polite please, but demands and follows up by a scream that echoes through the store when the mother says in an apologetic and almost fearful tone, “Not today, honey”.  Us old-timers have things we would love to say that would probably get us in trouble with everyone, things like, “Keep that up and I’ll give you something to scream about.”  The problem is, that laxness in training has brought us a whole generation that makes demands of God too, demands just as insufferable and spoiled, like “How can God let me suffer like this?”

              I have a friend, a sister in Christ who has her own medical problems—not the kind that could steal your vision, like mine, but the kind that could steal your life.  She is a bit older than I so the aches and pains and increasing exhaustion of old age plague her as well, but here is her attitude:

              “I pray to God for just a measure of health.  I don’t expect to be what I used to be.  We all get old, that’s just part of life.  I just want enough energy to do what I need to do to take care of others and help them.”

              We live in a world of increasing self-absorption, where “Poor little me” is plastered all over Facebook and peppers every conversation.  Instead of being grateful children, we have become demanding children who think God owes us for our faith.  “I’ve been so good and done so much.  Why is this happening to me?” 

            Thanks to the words of my friend, this is now my prayer:  Lord, just give me enough vision, for long enough, to do what I need to do to help others.  And someday soon, it will likely be, give me enough faith to keep helping others despite my lack of vision.

             If you are having a rough time, remember why you are here, remember whom you are following, and if you can’t find a good example among your peers, use this beautiful moment courtesy of my beautiful friend, a true disciple of the Suffering Servant and faithful daughter of God.
 
If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. (John 13:14-15)
 
Dene Ward

I think this might be something I am looking forward to most about Heaven—putting faces to names.  We have studied them so often and at such depth, that each of us has probably pictured Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Esther, Mary (all of them!), Peter, John, Paul and so many others in our minds.  Stuck as we are in our own culture and generation, we probably have erred in our portraits.  Jesus certainly was not the pale, brown-haired, blue-eyed, six foot man in the unstained white robes we see in practically every painting.   

            In fact, if you do as I do sometimes on Sunday mornings and picture him walking among us as our host, communing with us in the feast, you probably see him in robes then too, don’t you?  Yet Jesus came down as a man in a time when everyone wore robes.  The fact that he blended in so well and looked so ordinary was one of his problems—“Who does he think he is?  Isn’t this just the carpenter’s son?  Didn’t we watch him grow up among us?”  No, if Jesus had chosen this generation to make his appearance, he might very well have been in khakis, or even blue jeans, and some of us would have had just as much trouble accepting him as the scribes and Pharisees did.

            Putting faces to names in Heaven will be a revelation.  And we won’t have any problem talking with these great people.  I am sure you have had the experience of needing to speak with someone who is important, someone who is very busy—perhaps the preacher or one of the elders, or someone who is “popular” in whatever venue you happen to find yourself.  You stand in line waiting your turn, and if you are lucky you get 30 seconds before he or she is distracted by something or someone else.  You almost feel like a nuisance, and most of the time I find myself avoiding people like that just so I won’t be any trouble to them. 

            That will not happen in Heaven.  How do I know?  Because it’s Heaven.  Isn’t that the very definition of the word?  No more problems, no more trials, no more feelings of inadequacy.  We will know everyone and they will know us, and no one will need to wait in line for thirty seconds of token time.
Do you know what?  We have that now with God, a taste of Heaven whenever we pray.  He is instantly listening.  He is intent on our every word, even filling in the ones we can’t seem to get out right.  He knows our names and our faces, and with that he knows every problem or fear or anxiety, and we have his undivided attention for as long as we want it.  Our faith means we know him, not just his name, and because we trust him, he knows us too. 
           
            Putting faces to names in this life can be a lot of fun.  Putting a face on God will be amazing.
 
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!  The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.  But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure, 1 John 3:1-3.
 
Dene Ward

Almost forty years ago, I came home from a night class at the University of South Florida to find the police at my family’s home.  While my mother ran a quick errand, a burglar had broken in and stolen several items—this, despite the fact that the lights were on and the living room curtains standing wide open for all the neighbors to see through.  One thing he didn’t take, though, was the television.

            We were a frugal family—we had to be.  That TV still worked, but it had to be just so in order to work.  In those days televisions had dials, one for the channel, and one for the volume, which also worked the on/off function.  Our channel knob had gotten old and would not always stay in the slot for each channel when you turned it.  So my daddy whittled a piece of wood about three inches long that you had to wedge between the protruding flat plastic of the channel knob that helped you push it around the dial and the overhang from the television cabinet above it.  Otherwise, the knob slipped back out of the channel groove and all you got was snow.  We assume the thief either couldn’t figure out our homemade remedy or he thought it was too much trouble.  Whatever, we still had a TV to watch that night after the police left.

            I have had to deal with things like that all my life.  If you can get it to work somehow, why buy a new one?  It is a little embarrassing though to have to tell your overnight guests to count to three when they flush the toilet before letting the lever go.

            Maybe that is why I get a little peeved when I hear people make prayer such a process.  Before they are finished you need a manual to tell you how to start it, how to close, what words you can and cannot say, who to aim it to, what you can and cannot ask for, and when you can and cannot do it.  We get just like the rabbis who, after reading in the Psalms that David meditated “in the night watches” (Psa 63:6), instead of understanding the meaning--that David meditated all the time, even in the middle of the night--spent four or five pages of the Mishna arguing about how many night watches there were so they could be sure to meditate exactly that many times.

            Prayer should never be something that must be done “just so” to make certain it will work.  The Hebrew writer said Christ sacrificed himself so we could approach God “with boldness,” not scared to death we would do it the wrong way.  When?  “In time of need,” Heb 4:16.  Usually when I need something badly the last thing I want to do is look in the owner’s manual and read the directions.  I want something that works even when my mind is in turmoil and I can’t think straight.  And the Lord understands that because he, the Hebrew writer also tells us, suffered exactly the way we do, “in all points.” 

            Take advantage of the great gift that God has given us, the right to talk with him any time, to ask for anything, to pour out our hearts when the need arises.  Certainly we approach God with reverence, but checking off a list of rules is hardly reverence.  It is making the Divine gift a burden.  Surely that is about as sacrilegious as you can get.
 
For the LORD builds up Zion; he appears in his glory; he regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer. Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD: that he looked down from his holy height; from heaven the LORD looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die, that they may declare in Zion the name of the LORD, and in Jerusalem his praise, Psalm 102:16-21.

Dene Ward

I tried to call Keith from the doctor’s office the other day.  I had just stepped out of the elevator and was standing in an enclosed “breezeway” between the bank of elevators and the eye clinic, lined with windows and a view of the city from four floors up.  The little screen on the phone showed “Calling work,” then suddenly switched back to the home screen.  I never did hear it ring on the other end.  I tried twice more but both times the phone stayed silent. 

            I knew I had called from that site before, so I stepped a few paces to the left and tried again.  This time I got a rough ring on the other end and Keith picked up.   We still had a difficult conversation between the phone connection losing every other word of his and him being so deaf that even an amplifier is not an instant cure, but at least we communicated the necessities—I had managed to make another trip into town without running over anyone or anyone running into me.

            Sometimes we have difficulty making connections with God, and usually that is our fault—we are standing in the wrong place. 
 
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear. Isa 59:2
If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear, Psa 66:18.
And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: For they are a very perverse generation, Children in whom is no faithfulness, Deut 32:20.
 
            We overstate the matter, and miss the point entirely, when we say God only hears Christians.  He heard Cornelius’s prayer before he was converted, Acts 10:4.  God answered that “prayer of a sinner,” not with the instant forgiveness promised by televangelists today, but by sending Peter to preach the gospel, Acts 11:14, “words whereby you shall be saved.”

            The passages listed above were all said of people who claimed to be children of God, “children in whom there is no faithfulness,” yet people we would have called “believers” today.  Faithfulness involves dependent trust.  When God’s people in the Old Testament began relying on the gods of their pagan neighbors, participating in their worship, while at the same time claiming to worship him, he had them carried into captivity as a punishment.

            What are you relying on besides God?  Whatever it is, it stands between you and the connection you so badly need to help you handle life’s difficulties.  If you pray and pray and pray, yet still feel deserted by God, look around.  Are you standing behind a pillar of self-reliance?  Do you count your financial preparations as the ultimate security?  Do you look at the life you have led thus far and find yourself so completely satisfied with your efforts that you think you have salvation “in the bag?”  Security in the promises of God is one thing—arrogance and self-righteousness is quite another.  When we trust in anything besides God, we have become the same faithless children as those ancient Jews.

            God never tells us that life will be easy.  He never says that nothing bad will happen to us as long as we are faithful.  What he does tell us, is that as long as we rely on him alone, he will not forsake us.  He will give us the help we need to get through the tough times, and ultimately to the eternal salvation that will make this life look like a mere blink of the eye.

            Are you having a difficult time making a connection with God these days?  Take a step or two in the right direction, and suddenly the signal will become loud and clear.
 
And Asa cried unto Jehovah his God, and said, Jehovah, there is none besides you to help, between the mighty and him who has no strength: help us, O Jehovah our God; for we rely on you…Oh Jehovah you are our God, 2 Chron 14:11.
 
Dene Ward