Does it astonish you that we who live in the most affluent, most free country in the world, are also the most stressed? There are a multitude of reasons, of course. Job insecurity, crime, school shootings, lack of affordable health care, dysfunctional families to name just a few. We have lost our esteemed place in the world. For the first time in my lifetime, I hear people speak enviously of how good other nations have it (see the list above). In America too many people have placed their sense of value and worth on worldly things. It is hard for people to see beyond their day-to-day burdens and woes.

Please allow me to assume that stress will never go away. Please allow me to also state that I believe that God is certainly bigger and capable of helping us navigate 21st Century insanity! How foolish of us to not realize how generous, forgiving and supportive God is! We have all the essentials we could ever ask for or imagine, and yet we are beset with worry. This is how Satan, our great enemy, lies to us. He convinces us that we are unworthy, unloved, incapable of attaining such a supreme, all-powerful deity.

We pursue the trappings of this life, forgetting or not caring to know of any other alternative. Instead of gratitude and contentment, we want more. We want comfort and pleasure in what we can get. So we spin like gerbils in a cage. Teen suicides are skyrocketing. They have no assurances from the world of anything getting better. Notice I said from the world. Hope for the future is only pie-in-the-sky, utopian talk to them.

God is seasoning us, preparing us to be messengers of real hope, transcendent joy. Being Christ followers does not wipe out stress. We who are on the down-turn of our lifespan recognize this, but our young ones who are grasping, seeking a life-line, don’t know this. We cannot guarantee anything other than the love our Savior has for them. Allow it to be a somewhat mysterious proposition. We have the golden opportunity in our time to offer the one true, constant hope that will endure and overcome the horrors and bitter disappointments of our own making. Remind one another of the blessings both material and spiritual. Remind one another of the One who always forgives, always provides a way, and always loves unconditionally.

Pastor Art