Archive for November, 2023

What the World Needs Now Is Love

Posted in God's Love on November 24, 2023| Leave a Comment »

I recall listening to a hit song in the early 1970’s by Jackie DeShannon about how this world has achieved about everything but how to love each other. At the time, I was busy helping develop Minuteman Missiles which were the deadliest weapons on the face of the earth. Each missile carried several nuclear warheads capable of destroying whole cities and regions. I was a Development Engineer in the Air Force tasks with helping test the missiles to ensure they would destroy if called upon. I thought at the time there had to be a better way to live. We had the ability to destroy one another. Could we also discover how to love each other?

I have spent the years since then seeking to learn how to live a life that loves others and doesn’t destroy them by neglect, selfishness, and hatred.

I didn’t consider myself a particularly loving person in those days. I grew up with low self-esteem and had spent a good portion of my life self-centered and focused on protecting myself from the hurt inflicted by others.

But then there is God. He knows how to love for he is very loving and giving. Beginning in 1971, he began to teach and strengthen me in how to love others.

In the years since I was in the missile business, I often wondered how the United States, or the Soviet Union didn’t blow the other off the face of the earth. I concluded that it was God’s love and power that kept us from destruction.

Most of my friends in the Air Force were Missile Launch Officers and I saw that they were imperfect and could accidently, even though a remote possibility, set in motion a missile that could have ended the world as we know it.

And what about today? Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. What is going to hold them back from using them to trigger a nuclear war? The answer is for us to act wisely to do what we can to prevent this from happening. The other is to seek God’s mercy and love to hold back Iran and give us all a chance to experience his love before he brings this world to an end.

Those of us who have experienced his love already, have a responsibility to spread God’s love to this world by accepting his love for us daily and giving out this love to others. God says, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” in John 15:13. And that is just what Jesus did when he died on the cross. It was to pay the penalty for all of us for leaving God out of our lives and receiving his loving gift of going to heaven.

What this world needs is to find love in a relationship with the true God who is gracious and kind. Until that happens, many of us will continue to be disillusioned by utopian dreams that leave God’s loving presence out. We will continue to strive for a “heaven on earth” experience that refuses to acknowledge and trust the need for God’s love to make this earth a safe and loving place, instead of a nuclear disaster waiting to happen.

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Do You Feel Safe?

Posted in Rest on November 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »

We feel safe when we don’t expect harm or hurt from the life around us. To feel safe is one of the most basic needs we have.  

But it is hard to feel safe because we live in a dangerous world. Wars, mass shootings, financial problems, and the difficulties of daily living keep our flight or fight emotional systems in high gear to deal with the challenges we face.

We desperately search for safety in our money, achievements, impressing others. good circumstances, and fantasies. But do these things work? Do they keep us safe? Why do we still feel so much anxiety?

My deepest life-long desire has been for safety. I used to think that my striving for achievements was due to my desire to become important and impact my world. But as I looked closer, I realized that my greater motivation was to feel safe. Achievements were my way to feel safe- safe from criticism, disrespect, physical and emotional pain.

But if we are honest, we will accept the truth that it is a dangerous world and no matter how hard we work at it, we cannot create a perfect world where we will always feel safe.

But the good news is that there is God. He is strong and loving and commits himself to keeping us safe. That is, if we rely on him to help us. The Bible says, “He alone is my refuge, my place of safety (Psalm 91:2, NLT). Faith in him is the key to experiencing his help for “without faith it is impossible to please him (Hebrews 11:6 NAS).

We will always have plenty of problems and things that scare us. But with these problems Jesus says:

In the world you tribulation, but take courage I have overcome the world John 16:33 (NAS)

True safety only comes in relying on the reality of God’s presence and his promises to never desert or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).

This is the way God seems to work. He gives us everything we need pertaining to life (2 Peter 1:3) and getting our needs met, but we need to rely on him and his promises to experience them. When we don’t, we miss many of his blessings.

He told Israel that he had given them the Promised Land and now was their time to possess it. They may have thought, If God has already given the land to us, why do we have to risk our lives to possess it?

He told me several years ago, “This is the woman I have saved for you, now go make her your wife.” But I thought, why do I have to work hard to make her my wife if you have already saved her for me?”

These two examples underscore God’s way of often requiring us to walk with him through seemingly unsafe circumstances in trust to fully experience his blessings. When Israel obeyed and trusted in him, they succeeded in gaining the Promised Land. When I trusted and relied on God in the courtship of my wife, he worked miraculously to make it happen. Even though he had given her to me as a gift, I had to trust in and obey him to get her.

So, the surest way to feel safe in this dangerous and uncertain world is to lean hard on God and his protection.  It’s a journey of a thousand miles to learn to trust him in all circumstances. But God is faithful and as we grow in our ability to rely on him, we will experience his supernatural help in feeling safe.

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