Though

PastorCos has had it pretty quiet as of late. Unless, you count the church members with cancer, the traffic accidents, a friend's son going to Afghanistan, the church having its first Sunday contemporary service (and no one got hurt!), running out of communion cups during the Lord's Supper, shooting myself  in the knee with a cannon ball, discovering my summer visitation list went from 25 to 65, people continually asking questions about mass shootings, war, radical Islam, politics and a harder group to pastor being the ones who don't question such things, all in all a pretty easy stretch (tongue in cheek). Then disturbing news came from around the corner, literally.

The bridge close around the corner from our chapel, the one that connects the back half of our community to the front half and the rest of the world, is collapsing. A temporary fix keeps us out of the creek and going to the grocery store but what happens next? Questions fly. When will it be fixed? How long will it take? How do we get out when its being repaired? Will they pave the county gravel road we will have to use while the bridge is being repaired (no!) Who will pay for it? Will our maintenance fees go up? How will I get to the new course for my 8:40 tee time?

Meanwhile, a fissure developed along one of the cliffs in our development overlooking beautiful Lake Whitney and the cliff is falling into the lake. Oh, yeah, its taking a house with it. Its all over the news and the house is over the cliff. I feel sorry for the homeowners, they hadn't owned the home too long.  Somebody's probably going to get sued and I have no idea how all that will turn out since the only one who actually knew how everything would end up was God.

Oh, maybe that's a good point, the only One who really knows is God. Now I don't know if He answers questions about when your house will fall into the lake but maybe He gives geologists, engineers, and builders science and skills to predict such things. Maybe He doesn't tell us everytime we are going to have a wreck or get cancer but surely He knows how to help us navigate through such things. Maybe in the inconveniences of life when man-made things break or erode, He reminds us of how spoiled we are and how to look not to temporal things nor to store up treasures on earth where moth and rust (and fissures) destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. (Matt 6:19-20)

As I looked back over all the troubles going on all over the place, both near and far, I remembered a Psalm. It is one of those Psalms that sadly are too often relegated to funerals. It fits there but it fits even more when applied to living. It is Psalm 46. Listen to verse 2: "Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging."

Bridges give way, cliffs give way, health gives way and one day life in this body will itself give way and we are told not to fear. Why? How can we not fear when so much falls in or apart?  Because "there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall."  The best, safest, most secure place will not ultimately be on this earth. The earth will melt (Ps. 46:6; II Peter 3:10-13.) The best place where you cannot be touched in a harmful way for all eternity is in God's city, in God's house, in God's heart.

When the bad times hit, when they come, begin your next sentence with Though and end it with I am in Jesus' heart. Anything that comes in between those points you will survive.

Cos