I will be 70 years old this year. And in all my life I have never seen a time when our nation and world was more divided. All of us are keenly aware of the current political divide, racial divide and economic divide between the rich and the poor. On top of that is the religious divide between Islam and the rest of the world. On all sides we are witnessing the handiwork of an unseen enemy. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and spiritual forces in the unseen realm”. I sense that many of us are slowly loosing hope because the situation seems utterly hopeless.
What can you and I do about any of this?
The Lord spoke to me recently and gave me a strong word of encouragement. His word to me had nothing to do with “doing” anything. His word was “The most you can do to change the world is to be the real deal in your walk with Me”. If I am the real deal as a follower of Christ I will do my part wherever my walk takes me in this world. If others are the real deal in their walk with Christ, then they will do their part wherever their walk takes them.
If we are the real deal we will not contribute to the mess. Rather we will be living examples of the right thing to say and the right thing to do.
Yesterday one of my cousins, Debbie, told me of a dream she had at a time of great fear in her life. In her dream she was given the assignment of interviewing the devil. She found herself in a room lined with chairs on the walls. There sat the devil! A strikingly handsome man dressed in a fine business suit. As she thought about what question to ask him only one question came to her mind. The question was “How big are you”. When she asked the question the devil answered; “I am bigger than you can ever imagine”. At that, he puffed himself up and became enormous and frightful. His bigness was so big that it went beyond the roof and into the sky. Debbie looked up terrified, but just then the Lord gave her another question. The question was “What about the blood of Jesus?” Instantly the devil shrunk down to the size of a little imp. He looked up at Debbie and with a little squeaky voice like a scolded child, he said “That’s not fare”.
Let me encourage you to turn your gaze away from the current distress of the world and focus once again on “Being the real deal in your walk with the Lord”. Let us return to our first love and understand, that by so doing, we will have everything we need to respond properly to this world.