Changing Times

This one will be short.  There is a reason. Things are changing.

In times of uncertainty I’ve always turned to Proverbs 3:5-6.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

What’s interesting is how this morning my wife pointed me to Proverbs 3:25-26.

Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the Lord will be at your side and will keep your foot from being snared.

There are many ways that God can speak to humanity.  I read a story this week where Dolly Parton said, “I think God is in this, I really do.”  In times past, He has acted through a flood.  God performed miracles through Moses and brought plagues to Egypt to accomplish His purposes.  God sent serpents into the camp of His own people to get their attention.  God can use any and all means at His disposal to get our attention.  Believe it or not, God can even use a 1964 singer-songwriter now maybe considered a prophet named Bob Dylan.  Don’t believe me?  Read these words carefully.

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

These changing uncertain times bring yet another opportunity to the family of God to unite with a message of eternal hope, even if the world as we know it changes into something unrecognizable.  Because this world is not my home.  I am just passing through.  So what can I do??

The short, and the sweet of it all is simple.

God demonstrates His power by still being in Control, either we believe it or we don’t.
Jesus claims in Matthew 28:18 “All Authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth,” and either we believe it or we don’t.
The Holy Spirit residing now in true believers all over the world represents God’s abiding Presence among all of mankind.

Either we believe it or we don’t.

Remember, Solomon was wise enough to teach us:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.

Share with your friends, and trust God for the results.