D. K., in responding to a Daily Encounter in which I said that we need to be realistic and not underestimate what God can do through us, responded by saying, “The Bible reveals that nothing is impossible with God. If he chooses to do through us things that are far beyond our imagination or faith, he is sovereign and can do those things. So don’t you mean, ‘let’s not underestimate what God WILL do through us?’”

D. K. continues, “But, of course, I understand your point and in this regard I have used an illustration from my years of working in the Great Sahara Desert in North Africa. There are about a half-dozen types of sand there and each affects the driving of a vehicle differently. Power steering is necessary, especially on the larger trucks. If we spot an area of soft sand ahead and need to change the direction of the truck to avoid getting stuck, we can turn the steering wheel with one finger.

“However, it isn’t the power of our finger that changes the direction we are going, but rather it is the power steering. And yet we can’t sit back in the seat of the cab and expect the power steering in and of itself to move the big wheels in the right direction. We need to put forth our hand and grab the wheel and turn it. Similarly, with our lives, we can’t change the direction we are going (even if we see the dangers ahead) by sitting back and expecting God’s ‘power steering’ to alter our course. We must reach out and grab the wheel and turn! But it’s God’s power that alters the course.”

Good point. Of this we can be certain, whenever we fulfill our responsibility and do our part, God will always do his part. Or as George Washington once said to his soldiers who were about the cross the Potomac River, “Trust God but keep your powder [rifles] dry.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for your Holy Spirit which empowers me to live my life in harmony with your will. Help me always to depend on your power and not try to live for or serve you in my own strength. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Luke 1:37 (NIV).

Stephen Muncherian, in his sermon, “Oh, For One Good Lawyer” told about former heavy-weight boxer, James “Quick” Tillis, a cowboy from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who fought out of Chicago in the early 1980s. Tillis recalls how, on his first day in Chicago, after getting off the bus, he stood outside the Sears building and, putting his two suitcases down, looked up at the Tower and said to himself, “I’m going to conquer Chicago.” When he looked down, his two suitcases were missing!²

That’s Chicago! Having lived there when I went to college and looked up at and been to the top of the Sears Tower, I can empathize with Tillis.

We can be confident, excited, and positive one moment and be disillusioned the next. That’s life. We live in a broken, sinful world and disappointments come to us all. We put our trust in people and get ripped off. We get hurt deeply when someone we love turns against and attacks us. We get our hearts broken when we are abandoned, rejected, or have lost a loved one through death.

Pain comes to us all. The important thing is that we don’t allow these circumstances to make us resentful and bitter. God wants to use these situations to help us grow and make us better persons. Satan wants to use them to discourage us and make us bitter. Indeed, the negative circumstances of life can make us bitter or better. The choice is ours.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, no matter what happens to me help me always to remember that while it rains on the just as well as the unjust my life is ultimately in your hands, and that all things do work together for good to those who love and put their trust in you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Romans 8:28 (NIV).

2. Adapted from the sermon, “Oh, For One Good Lawyer!” by Rev. Stephen Muncherian. Cited on www.spiritofgracefellowship.org.

“In 1970 a pregnant, unmarried woman sought to have the Texas anti-abortion statute, first enacted in the 1850s, declared unconstitutional. To protect her anonymity she was given the fictitious name Jane Roe. The initial action was against Henry Wade, District Attorney of Dallas County, Texas. Roe claimed that the statute was unconstitutionally vague and violated her right of privacy as guaranteed by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The case was argued before the Supreme Court in December of 1971, re-argued in October of 1972. In January of 1973 the case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. A majority of 7 to 2 declared the Texas statute unconstitutional.”

Since then millions of unborn children have been aborted and we have descended all the way to accepting barbarian, murderous partial-birth abortion—at least it has been accepted and approved by some politicians, liberal judges, and far too many so-called progressive thinkers (who should in reality be called regressive thinkers).

I’m certainly thankful that abortion wasn’t legal when my mother was carrying me. And how about all those who are in favor of abortion? Did they want their mother to have freedom of choice when they were in her womb?

The point I’m making here is that if we distort the truth and keep repeating and promoting it for long enough, eventually it becomes more and more acceptable and we end up believing our own and others’ lies. It’s happened with abortion (which we now justify by calling it freedom of choice), and with homosexuality (which we name an alternate lifestyle). The promoters of gay marriage (which is so diametrically opposed to nature not to mention God’s design) know how this principle works, so we can be sure that they will continue to keep pushing, glorifying, dressing up and promoting gay marriage until it is eventually more widely accepted and believed in by the masses.

Unless we who call ourselves Christians—who are to be the salt of the earth—make a solid stand for truth and stand against those who distort God’s Word, little by little, like the frog in the kettle we will eventually boil ourselves to death. As I’ve been saying this week, the more dishonest we are, the more we will distort all other truth, including God’s truth, to make it say exactly what we want it to say. For the sake of our children and our children’s children, let us all take a stand for truth.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, again I pray that you will help me to be real and personally honest, to understand exactly what your Word says and teaches, and abide always by your truth even when it means swimming against the tide of the so-called politically correct masses. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

P.S. Jane Roe is anonymous no more. Norma McCorvey no longer supports abortion rights, and has a pro-life ministry at http://www.roenomore.org/.

1. 2 Corinthians 4:2 (NIV).

I was amused at the story our now “middle-aged” pastor recently told about himself when trying to learn surfing a few short years ago. He had a difficult time “getting it” and, according to his own confession, still hasn’t mastered the art of successful surfing.

I could identify with him in my trying to learn snow skiing later in life. I never fully mastered the art either … my biggest problem was trying to turn. On one occasion I skied right into the back of one of my skiing buddies because I couldn’t turn quick enough to get out of the way. On another occasion somehow I collided with a lady skier and we got locked together with her facing forwards and me facing backwards as we continued skiing down the slope totally out of control until we crashed. Sprawled out on the snow I couldn’t resist making the comment, “We’ve got to stop meeting this way!” Fortunately neither one of us was hurt.

The big lesson I needed to learn, like the lesson my pastor was taught, “You always go where you are looking so keep looking toward where you want to go—not to where you don’t want to go!”

That’s a great lesson regarding most aspects of life too. If we fix our eyes only on the pleasures and benefits this world has to offer, that’s the direction our life will take and, while we might gain great material wealth, we will end up becoming spiritually bankrupt—morally bankrupt too if all we look for is the sinful pleasures this life has to offer in abundance.

On the other hand, if we commit our life to and fix our eyes on spiritual and eternal values, that’s the direction our life will take—and the rewards will be eternal, for we always reap what we sow, even if it is eventually!

As today’s Scripture lesson teaches: “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to live with eternal values in view, looking always unto Jesus for help and direction in every aspect of my life. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Hebrews 12:1-2 (NKJV).