Whatever that is

My husband has found himself in the midst of a group of large men whom he has the ability to share Christ with. After quite some time in the midst of these men, my husband told me he didn’t feel like he was among these men for their salvation. This particular group of men, he said, didn’t seem to have any interest in Christ beyond the most superficial way.

He said they would curse through telling him how they were ‘Christians’. These men, it seems are totally lost.

A friend of my husband’s said he firmly believes my husband is having an impact simply because he is there. This friend  spoke of the impact my husband has had on his life and how my husband needed to do nothing but be himself. He spoke of how my husband speaks of Christ without saying a word.

Simply put my husband lives out Scripture. He doesn’t just read and study it, he does it.

And that very thing…his friends says…is all that is needed to point people to Christ. And still my husband felt the inability to get through to this group of men.

This group of men…it seems…are happy in their situation, happy in their worlds where the desires of the flesh rule all. They can’t comprehend the idea of giving up anything, much less everything, for Christ.

As I think of the situation my husband has encountered, and his frustration with not seeing any fruit from his efforts, I am reminded of Paul, and the other apostles, but it’s to Paul that my mind goes. Maybe because I am most familiar with the teachings of Paul, or maybe because I enjoy Paul’s writings the most, either way, I think of him.

Paul was a man of great influence, a soldier. He had power. He had status. He was used to getting things done simply because he told those under him to do them. When he spoke, things happened.

Then the Lord took hold of his life and turned it upside down. Instead of the hunter, he became the hunted. Instead of the arrester, he became the arrested. Instead of the leader, he became the slave.

Here was a man that had once held great power and importance, and in what probably felt like the blink of an eye, he lost it all. He had the world, but he gained Christ. He had earthly status, he gained eternity.

What must a man that had once held such power, who had been a leader among men, have felt as he stood before group after group telling them of Christ, warning them against the sins they were committing, telling them what they should be doing…and seeing them do the opposite….what must he have felt as he tried to lead this group of Christians?

What frustration he must have felt…a man used to issuing orders…at seeing the people he had just given such clear instructions to not listen to him. He wrote these instructions out for them, gave them the rules and guidelines in writing.

Did he ever stand in the midst of those he was speaking to…leading…and want to say, ‘what is my purpose here? I see no fruit.’

In our American society so many ‘churches’ and their pastors and others are used to seeing immediate results. They ‘bring people to Christ.’ They count success by the number of people they can save in a day, a program, or a year. It’s easy…just give them an emotional experience that makes them want to go to heaven , then get them to pray a short prayer. Boom. Instant ‘Christian.’

But those instant ‘Christians’ aren’t really Christians. Those short prayers don’t save a person. A three year old that gets counted among the saved…is not saved. Neither is the ten year old…or the ninety year old. It takes more than a prayer to truly save a person.

Christ must save them.

Paul knew this. He wasn’t trying to win souls. He was trying to guide the Christians that Christ saved. Yes, he may have gotten to some of them before their salvation, he may have planted the seed, may have laid the groundwork, but he wasn’t the one that did the saving.

But what frustration might he have felt as he tried to lead the people he encountered. How many people did he talk of Christ with only to see them walk away from him and continue in sin? How many stood before him and claimed to agree while spewing vile words?

How many times did Paul want to wonder what his purpose is?

How many times did he feel as if he was beating his head against a brick wall? I think of a very brief conversation I had with an atheist not all that long ago and how speaking with that person was like speaking with…I don’t even know what. To say the conversation was a complete lack of time would be an understatement. There simply was no point in trying to talk to them. They had absolutely no belief in God and therefore disregarded everything I said. I got the impression that this person disregarded me.

I read somewhere once that college students are being taught that God is something for the uneducated…the poor…to hold onto because their lives are so awful.

This atheist, as I was told by someone that knew them fairly well, discounts anyone that is uneducated. If you can’t talk to this person on an intellectual basis they consider you to be less than nothing.

How many people like that did Paul encounter?

How many times did he want to say…I’m doing nothing here.

My husband still speaks of these men he has the chance to influence even in a small way. I hear in the things he says that he still runs against the same problems. And yet…like my husband’s friend…I know that my husband is having a profound effect on these men. Whether my husband ever sees the fruit of his efforts, he is having an effect.

Again, I think of the atheist. I don’t imagine I made any kind of an impact on him…but did I have an impact on anyone that may have contact with him? Or might he, even in derision, speak of the things I said to someone I may never meet, and my words have an effect on that other person. I just don’t know.

Matthew 10 tells us of Christ sending the disciples out. He tells them not to worry of what they will say because it isn’t them speaking but the Lord speaking through them.

The Lord uses our words and influence in ways that we may never see.

My husband my never see any fruit of his encounter with these men, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be fruit, sometime, somewhere.

How nice it would be if we could see the numbers of ‘conversions’ the way the professing ‘churches’ do. How nice to be able to walk and talk with people and ‘lead them to Christ’ and know when we walked away that we had gained another ‘Christian.’ But that isn’t the way it is. In Matthew we are told that even our prayers are private.

How much more so might our salvations be?

I was recently told by a man of how he went to bed one night very much against God…and how he woke up the next morning totally repentant and no longer the man he was.

That wasn’t a public ‘confession of faith’, it wasn’t being ‘led to Christ’, it was a private occurrence between that man and the Lord.

Paul had a very public conversion, yet in the midst of all those people…they had no idea what was happening to him.

Jeremiah was sent to warn a people that wouldn’t listen. He wanted enough tears to be able to cry day and night for the ‘slain’ of his people (Jeremiah 9:1).

Salvation…when it comes…is on the Lord’s timetable. It is according to his plan. As is the purpose to our lives. We may think we know our purpose but what we think our purpose is may well be far from the purpose the Lord has for us.

But we can be sure of one thing…He has placed us where he has for a reason, there is a purpose in what we’re experiencing at any given moment. And sometimes…all we have to do is be ourselves to make a difference, to influence others.

We are here because we are the Lord’s and He is working out His plan through us.

Whatever that is.

Born into sin

I was recently reading over one of my old posts and saw where I questioned the definition of nothing.

What…truly…is nothing?

Does it even exist?

In that post I mentioned that if you hold nothing in your hands…you hold air and light in them. I discussed the thought with my sister and daughter. My sister took the idea a bit further…is there nothing in our hands, or are we in nothing?

But…my mind still struggles with the very concept of nothing. For sure nothing doesn’t truly exist. Everywhere…there is air. In an empty bowl, there is air. In an empty envelope, there is air. My daughter added in that there are also dust particles even if we can’t see them. And so…truly…nothing does not exist.

The word nothing exists. We use it to differentiate between a cup or bowl that holds something and one that holds…nothing. Or is empty. Except…it truly isn’t empty because it still holds all the things we cannot see.

The day after I had that conversation with my sister and daughter I was looking through a book at a large book store and saw where a reformed preacher of old had an entire sermon on the topic of nothing.

Our minds truly cannot grasp the concept. We stagger under the stress of trying to define nothing. We struggle to explain what nothing really is and if it exists or not.

When someone asks you what you’re doing and you answer nothing…your heart is beating, your digestive track is working, you are standing/sitting/ lying, you are breathing, your mind is thinking. You are doing something even as you think you are doing nothing.

And so…does nothing exist?

People today are fascinated by origins. There are great debates about just how life came to be. Evolutionists come up with great theories to support their ideas that life came from…nothing. Christians understand that all of life came from the Lord, that it didn’t just happen, that it was created. And yet we must still go back to how the Lord created everything from nothing.

I recently had a conversation with two grade school children on that very topic. One of them said to me,‘it’s hard to understand that God was just always there when nothing else was.’

How simply this child captured what our human minds struggle with.

It’s hard to understand that the Lord was there…when there was nothing. We can’t understand the true concept of nothing because we have never seen nothing. Not once. There has always been something even when we think there is nothing.

Genesis chapter 1 tells us that God made everything. Prior to Him making everything…the beginnings…the origins…what was there? Nothing. The answer is…there was God and there was nothing. And then the Lord created a perfect universe…a perfect world…perfect heavens and earth.

Until He created them…there was true nothing.

But once created there was perfection. God called it good. He called it very good.

We no longer live in that perfect world. We no longer live in a very good world. Genesis chapter 3 tells us how sin entered the world. We are told not only of how one man and one woman sinned…we are told of how the birth of sin in every man was born…how it began.

Genesis chapter 3 gives us a very important part of the history of the world. It gives us a turning point in the world and in all of mankind. We are given the story…the history…for the reason why our world is the way it is and why men are the way they are.

It was the beginning of the world as we know it.

It was the end of the world as Adam and Eve knew it.

It was the day…the moment…when sin entered the world.

That thought is nearly as hard to grasp as the idea of complete nothingness. Can you imagine a sinless world?

Without sin there is no evil. Without sin there is no danger from men. Without sin there are no lies. Without sin there is no disobedience…no covetousness…no idolatry…no…anything but perfection.

In that day…in that moment…with one bite of fruit…Adam sinned and tainted forever the world that the Lord had called good. He stained the world. He ruined what it had been and made it something completely different. He changed it for all time.

It was a change decreed by the Lord but it was a change nonetheless. What God had called good…Adam changed. No longer was there perfection. There was now this…thing…this evilness…that would permeate all of the world throughout all time.

What’s worse…it wouldn’t live only in the world…it would live forever in the hearts of every person ever born…except for Christ.

Sin was unleashed on the world by a single action by one man.

And it created…forever more…a sickness that would live in the hearts and minds of mankind. From birth. Those perfectly innocent newborn babies…contain within them the evilness of sin.

Sin is a disease of the flesh that feeds and preys on us from the moment of conception.

That is another one of those nearly impossible to grasp thoughts. How can we even consider that a baby that has yet to see the earth can hold within their hearts the evilness of sin? How can we consider that a minutes old baby is sinful? Yet…Scripture says they are.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men…Romans 5:12

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men… For as by the one’s man’s disobedience the many were made sinners…Romans 5:18-19

The many were made sinners by one man’s disobedience. Because Adam sinned he brought sin into the entire world…into all people for all time.

Because Adam sinned…all men are diseased in the heart from the moment of conception. Because Adam sinned all newborn babies take their first breaths as sinners.

As a mother…as someone that see’s newborns as being oh-so-innocent…I have a very hard time imagining that the tiny baby I hold in my arms, snuggle against my chest, could be sinful in any way. My human mind sees those babies as innocent but Scripture says they hold sin within them.

Because sin isn’t something we do…it’s something we inherit by being born. We have no choice in the matter, we simply get born into sin. Unborn babies grow inside their mothers until the moment that they are born into this world. The baby doesn’t chose to go from their watery world into our world, it is forced into the world through circumstances not of its choosing and is born into a big, wide, world where it will spend the rest of its life.

In a similar fashion that brand new baby is forced into a world of sin, sin that lives within them, even when they are too young to choose to sin. And they live and grow in sin because sin is the human nature.

We tend to think of so many things as being ‘only human’. So many, many things are ‘only human’ but so much of those ‘only human’ things are what we call human nature. And the nature of humans is sin.

We cannot help the longings in our hearts for things that take us far from Christ. As children we, in our human nature, want more toys, we want those popular shoes, or the in style clothes. Teenagers grow into sin almost as if it were some sort of epidemic disease. It is rampant and it breeds rapidly.

It takes the child its parents have known and loved for years and almost overnight turns that teenaged child into someone different. That teenaged child longs for the things of the world. They get caught up in idolatry, sexual immorality; stealing, coveting… the list goes on and on.

There is no way to treat the ‘disease’ that grows in children and spreads rapidly in the teen years. There is no cure for it. Because it is human nature and it is a sinful nature. It is the sin that they were born into growing into fruition and taking hold of their lives just as they begin to become truly responsible for themselves.

It is the sin that they were born into that is their…and our…human nature and it gains ground rapidly. Whatever they may become, whatever they are, sin rules them.

It ruled them in childhood too but it was…in most cases…restrained by their parents. To some extent anyway. But as they leave childhood behind and enter a time in their lives when their own thoughts and opinions and wants take over for the job that their parents once did…there is no stopping the roller coaster of sin that will bombard them. And that they will follow.

Because it is human nature.

Because human nature is a sin nature.

We are born into it. We grow up in it. We become adults in it. Even the regenerate live in it. There is no escaping it. No getting away from it.

Because of Adam we inherited sin much the way we inherit our parent’s eye color or blood type. It is passed to us through birth and fills us throughout life whether we want it or not.

Because we were born into sin.

Gone is the perfect world the Lord created and in its place is a sin filled world with sin filled people. The human mind generally has a hard time seeing themselves as bad, evil even, but the truth is…according to Scripture…we are all evil. We are all so filled with sin that we in no way deserve the Lord’s mercy or grace.

We live in sin because we are born into sin. You need never do anything considered evil by the human mind because the very fact that you cannot ever love God above all else makes you evil beyond comprehension. I fail every single day to love the Lord above everything…and everyone…else. And that makes me the worst kind of evil in the Lord’s eyes.

I don’t want to put anything before the Lord but it happens. It’s human nature. And that human nature is sin in the extreme. It is a sin nature that lives in me because I was born with it. I fail every single day to live up to the teachings of my holy God and therefore I sin every single day.

It is like a fault that is in me that I can never repair.

Because I was born into sin.

 

Happy to be a servant

Paul said he was a servant of Christ…a slave of Christ. He not only claimed to be a servant of Christ, He said he was a servant by the will of God.

In just those few words He showed that he belonged to Someone higher than he was. He clearly said he belonged to another and that it wasn’t by his will but by the will of God.

Our society balks at the very thought of belonging to anyone but ourselves. I heard a preacher say that women today want nothing to do with marriage because feminists say it is prostitution. Can you imagine…being a wife is equated with being a prostitute? That’s how far we’ve come. It’s how depraved our society and the sin filled minds of people have come. We now take a holy state…a God ordained state…a state that was, in fact, the very first human relationship created…and equate it with the sin of sexual immorality.

If women in our society can’t even stand the thought of belonging to their husbands…how can they stand the thought of belonging to God?

I have a relative that has said many times that she isn’t impressed with marriage, that she has no desire to get married, that after seeing marriage up close she doesn’t want to become her husband’s slave. This was said in a conversation about my marriage. Has in fact come up in several conversations about my marriage. I have never felt in any way as if I’m a slave to my husband. He in no way treats me as if I’m inferior to him or as if I’m here to do his bidding. I do things for and with him out of my love for him and my enjoyment of doing those things for him, not because he requires me to do anything.

Being his wife is actually…an honor. So much so that I can’t even put into words what a special honor it is to be my husband’s wife.

Where this relative got the idea that I’m a slave to my husband I have no idea but it’s an idea that she is holding strongly to.

For her, marriage seems to somehow represent a loss of freedom and of self and the gaining of nothing. I can think of so many things that we become slaves to that most people don’t think of as our being a slave. Sin tops the list. Then the government and the taxes we must pay…even on our food. Anyone that works becomes a slave to their employer. They must show up at a certain time, do what they’re told, stay until they’re released to go home. Some aren’t even allowed to take sick days. Others are required to go to the doctor if they miss a single day of work. They may bring home a paycheck but that sure sounds like an institution of slavery to me.

So many people in our society see that as normal but balk at the idea of belonging completely to the Lord. Paul had no such problems. His very identity was that of a servant of Christ. It was how he introduced himself, how he defined himself. He started his letters with…I am a servant of Christ.

How much more profound could he have been?

What else could he have said that would have told who he was and Who he belonged to?

I belong to Christ because…I am His. It’s that simple and that complex. He created me and therefore what is created can’t help but belong to the one that did the creating. But I’m His…because my very soul longs for Him. It is within the depths of me that I feel Christ.

I once told someone that I can feel the Lord ‘in here’ with my hand lying on my chest. That person said simply…I can’t. I knew that even as I told them I could. Deep within me lives the Lord and because He lives there, He is everything that I am. Or I am everything that He makes me to be.

I am happy to be a servant to Christ. I am happy to belong to Him.

What would we see?

Can you imagine what would happen if you could somehow take someone from say…the late 1700’s and transport them into today? My sister and I used to imagine just such a thing. We would imagine bringing someone forward from their time to ours. We would then imagine what their reaction would be to certain things.

How would someone that has never experienced electricity react to being able to flip a switch and create light?

What would they think with their first glimpse of a vehicle?

How would they react to indoor plumbing?

What about a microwave? Coffee pot? Cell phone? How about T.V.? A radio? Modern day clothes? A washing machine?

There are so many things that we can imagine would baffle someone coming from the past to our modern times. And we can easily imagine what those things would be.

But I have to wonder what would baffle them more, the very modern inventions…things they couldn’t begin to imagine in their time…or the moral and religious state of people today. As much as we may think they would marvel over our ‘modern conveniences’, it could very well be something very different that would confound them.

So much of what we see as ordinary…even if we don’t like it…would be dumbfounding to people from a different time. How many babies are born to single mothers every day? They say the number is somewhere around one out of every two. To a person that lived in a time when pretty close to 100% of all children were born to married parents…how astounding would they be with the way our country sees unwed parenthood?

Several years ago I had someone tell me that the majority of the people in jail in Saudi Arabia are unwed mothers and that the reason they’re in jail is because they are unwed mothers. What must people from countries with laws like those think of the numbers of unwed mothers in our country? And how much worse would someone to whom unwed parenthood was nearly unheard of think?

How would they respond not to the movies that are so easily attainable in our country but to the content of those movies? What would they think of the sin and moral depravity depicted in those movies? How would they respond at the ease in which the Lord’s name is taken in vain time and time again in those movies? How would they respond to the same thing happening in the people they pass in town?

What would they think of a country that kills its own unborn babies? How would they respond to meeting a woman that had had an abortion?

What would they think upon sitting in one of our country’s Sunday services in any of our ‘church’ buildings? Being taken straight from their time to ours…what would they see in those services? Would they hear Truth in the sermon being delivered or would they be able to easily pick out all the twisting and changing the preacher does? Would they feel ‘moved’ and ‘led to worship’ by the music or would they stand in shock at the concert being put on before them?

If we could see our world through the eyes of someone coming into it from a more moral time, a time when Truth may have been a little more prevalent…what would we see?

They won't disappear

Not all that long ago I had someone ask me what happened to the reformed belief before Calvin turned it into what is known as Calvinists. This person told me it didn’t exist before Calvin shared his ideas and gained followers.

Recently I received a book in the mail that talks about the true church. I vaguely remember ordering it some time back but had long since forgotten what the author’s beliefs were by the time the book arrived. I took the time to look the author up and discovered that I don’t share his beliefs but by the time I did so I had already read a very small bit of the first couple of pages in the book.

Regardless of the fact that I don’t agree with the author’s beliefs I did find something in the book that I very much agree with. In the first paragraph of the introduction the author talks about how the true church, as he calls it, will never be extinguished. He speaks of how it is foretold to always exist.

I don’t share the author’s beliefs but I do know that he is right in that. Christ’s church is the true Church, it is the church spoken of in Scripture and it will always exist. In fact that Church is the very reason for all of existence.

The purpose for mankind and all of creation…from before the Lord created the earth until long past Christ’s return…the purpose is the salvation of God’s chosen people.

This author, in the first pages of that book, went on to speak of how Christ’s church hasn’t always been visible, how sometimes it has been but a very few people. Scripture tells us that there are few.

As I read those few paragraphs in that book…written by someone whose beliefs I don’t hold…I couldn’t help but think of the person that asked me where the reformed people were in history.

Historically speaking there have been many times when the world wasn’t a safe place for God’s people. Going all the way back to the Old Testament we can see in men like Daniel that believing in God hasn’t always been safe. How many people throughout time have tried to keep themselves from being detected because their faith would cost them their freedom…or their life.

I recently wrote a post titled persecution. In it I spoke of some of the people that have experienced persecution for their faith. The time in which the person questioned me about people that hold the reformed belief was a time of great persecution for the ‘true’ Church. It was a time when people were killed for believing in the true Christ. It was a time when people were told by rulers who they could and could not worship.

In times of great persecution the ‘true’ church would have had to hide from their persecutors. There are places, even today, where those that have faith in Christ must keep their faith mostly to themselves. They may share it quietly but in those places they can’t share it in a way that would make the news, or be recorded in the history books. They are there but not seen. They believe and worship but must disappear in the eyes of their country. They must be like the Jews when Hitler reigned…hiding their very existence. Some may go about their daily lives appearing to be what they are not.

The ‘true’ church as that author put it has never disappeared. It will never disappear. The Lord has His people here for a purpose and He has a plan that He works out through and for them.

But they may not always be within sight of the world.

As I think of that, I think of America and how there are many professing ‘Christians’ but few Christians that uphold the Truth of the Bible.

Right here, right now, in America it’s hard to find the Church that is spoken of in Scripture. A child of Christ knows that that church is the body of believers…the elect. They also know that the church consists of even one such believer. But try and find those believers in any city.

It’s not that easy.

And today we have all of the internet at our fingertips. We can search for groups or ‘churches’ of people that hold the reformed belief. We can look for others that share our faith. But finding them, even with all our technology, is much like finding the needle in a haystack.

How much harder might it be to find them in a given time period in history?

As fascinating as the history of God’s people is…I don’t need to know where they were at every time in history to know they were there. Scripture shows me that the Lord’s people will always be there, that they won’t disappear.

They may not always be visible but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t there.

Why should we be treated as equal?

I stumbled across something today that made me pause. It could be old news or it could have been fresh news this morning…I do not know. And to me…for me…it makes no difference if it’s new news or old news. It’s the very fact that the thought exists that gained my attention.

You see, the news I saw this morning, which was really a link at the end of an article I was reading, was about a female draft in America. When I clicked on the link I was taken to a page that had a video but no article. I had no interest in watching the video so I skipped down to the nearly 600 comments. And what I found there was more than enlightening.

Among all those comments, once I skimmed through the many, many, insults aimed at other commenters, were two trains of thought…those that supported the draft and those that didn’t. The amazing thing was that very few people supported it. Among those that didn’t support it there seemed to be several thought processes, those that didn’t want a draft at all-whether for males or females, those that didn’t believe women should be in the military because they didn’t believe the women could physically do the jobs a man could, and those that didn’t want women in the military because they believed women should be protected from the dangers and horrors of war.

But the amazing thing was that among those that supported a female draft most of them supported it because of the women…feminists…that have demanded equality. And among those supporting the female draft there was almost a 100% distinction between the women that they thought should be drafted and the ones they didn’t think should be.

The commenters, from what I could gather, were mostly men, regardless of which side of the draft discussion they fell on. And those that were for the draft were almost all for it as it pertained to the feminist women. They suggested not only drafting the feminists but in many cases putting them on the front lines of war. But the same people suggesting that were also, in many cases, saying that the non-feminist women should not be drafted at all.

I have several female relatives that would probably fall somewhere in the feminist spectrum, although as far as I know none of them claim to be a feminist. And as far as I know none of them would support or want a female draft. But then I’m not sure I know very many men that support or want a male draft.

But what I found truly amazing as I read through that long list…a list I didn’t reach the bottom of…of comments was the near total distinction between the women being discussed. Regardless of which side of the debate a commenter stood on, it was almost as if they were discussing two different…breeds. Dogs verses cats or men verses women. Feminist women verses non-feminist women.

They did not, in most cases, lump all women into the same category, although there were a few that did. I can well remember many times in my life when I have thought back to the many things the feminist women have done and wondered why those handful of women had to go and ruin things for the rest of us. Just because some women wanted to be treated as men why do we all have to suffer for it?

The draft spoken of in the comments I read, is only one example of many cases were the feminists and those seeking equality have managed to ruin things for everyone.

Men and women were not created equal. We were never designed to be equal. We were not intended to be equal.

Why should we be treated as equal?

And why would we want to be?

Preparing for the future

Turn on your TV or any device with internet and you’re pretty much guaranteed to see some sort of horror. I’m not talking about movies or books. I’m not talking about words you’d rather not see or pictures that offend you with just a glance. I’m talking about some kind of disaster. Train wrecks, riots, racism, beheadings…you name it, it hits the news.

Recently I was reading an online news article about something that, to me, has the possibility of affected our entire nation in a bad way. It has the potential to draw people to something that stands against Christianity by any definition. And so I read the article. But it wasn’t that article that wound up having such an effect on me. It was the link at the bottom of the article, one that warned of something to come. Out of curiosity, and thinking it was weather related, I clicked on it. I wound up watching a video that was actually very good and, from what little I know of the topic being discussed, factual.

I actually found myself interested in what I was watching and even considered sharing it with my husband, who wasn’t there when I was watching it, but what started out being pretty good and informative wound up being a rather long sales pitch trying to get me to buy a set of books. I exited the video before it ended. But I was left with the thoughts that watching it created.

You see this video spoke about terrorist attacks on America, it spoke of things that sounded completely plausible to me. And I knew just enough on the subject to know that most of what they were saying did indeed seem to be true.

But now, after having watched all of it I intend to, I’m thinking on things they said. You see the person that made the video is what they call a ‘prepper’ or a ‘survivalist’. Scripture tells us not to worry about tomorrow. It tells us that the Lord will take care of us. But I must admit to seeing some merit in being at least a little prepared for certain circumstances. I’m not talking about survival type end of the world scenarios. Nor am I advocating storing up five, or even one, year of food and supplies…have you ever thought of how much space you’d need to do that?

I’m talking about basic preparations. Most people put gas in their cars long before the gauge reaches the E. In doing so they are preparing for their future in the sense that they will have the gas needed to drive the next time they get behind the wheel. People on medications prepare by making sure to get their medication before they run out of their current supply. Most of us prepare for daily life by buying a week or more’s worth of groceries at a time.

I remember once, years ago, when I lived within two blocks of two major grocery stores. I had a refrigerator that was trying to go out on me and would keep food cold but not quite cold enough and the freezer wouldn’t freeze. I had no back up refrigerator, no deep freeze. So I shopped for groceries daily. I kept shelf stable foods like cereal and bread on hand but bought only what I would need for that day if it needed any kind of refrigeration.

That system worked well for us for months. There were days I didn’t want to go to the store and on those days we did have just enough in the refrigerator to make it until the next day. We also had enough shelf stable foods to make it a few days if need be. And so we did fine basically eating only what I bought that day.

But then trouble came. One day an unexpected ice storm hit. A storm that was supposed to bring rain brought ice and left us iced in for over a week. A tree broke in half and blocked my driveway, power lines snapped. And we were stuck at home without enough groceries to see us through. Somehow we stretched what little was in the refrigerator and the contents of the pantry out until I could get out to go to the store. We didn’t go hungry but we didn’t eat all that well either. And I had plenty of time to worry as I watched our already meager supply of food dwindle.

From that I learned to never let my food supply get that low again. What worked fine when everything was normal didn’t work so well when something out of the ordinary happened.

I have seen time and again since that storm that when the weather forecast predicts snow or ice people run to the store to buy groceries, batteries, flashlights… Some of them go to buy extra supplies just in case, some go because they don’t have enough to make it for a week or more if they can’t get to the store.

And as a result they prepare for what is to come. Not because they fear the disaster that could happen but because they want to be able to make it for a few days if something does happen.

I live in tornado alley. We are encouraged to keep a disaster kit just in case a tornado should strike our area. I’ve seen what happens after a tornado goes through our area. I’ve seen the devastation that can be cause by even small tornados. I understand the wisdom in having something in place should we get hit by a tornado…do I admit now that I didn’t follow the advice?

But that wasn’t the sort of preparation the man in the video I watched was talking about. He was suggesting that we be prepared before an ice storm, before a tornado, or even before the family reunion converges on your home. What he was suggesting we prepare for was a large scale terrorist attack or other disaster that could essentially end life as we know it. And the method this man suggested it could happen wasn’t some farfetched thing but something that very easily could happen.

But now that I’m no longer watching the video waiting for him to divulge the answer to this possible scenario I sit here thinking of it and how he essentially told people to prepare for the end.

And I’m reminded of a verse my husband likes to use often…

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10:28

There are lots of people that are what they call ‘preppers’ or ‘survivalists’ out there. There are people that stockpile weapons, food, machines, books, skills, and who knows what all else. I used to find that sort of thing fascinating. I never had the money or the space to do any of the things they suggested beyond putting together a bad to have on hand in a disaster. That did come in handy during the many tornado warnings we spent sitting in the hall for safety. We never needed them because we were impacted by the storm to the point of needing a survival bag but I did put the snacks, coloring books and crayons, flashlights and other items to use. It was nice having everything together when we were placed under a tornado warning. As the children ran for the hall I grabbed the bag that I knew would keep them entertained while we sat there.

But as useful as I found the items I had packed in the backpack, and I doubt a serious survivalist would have had any interest in the bag I had prepared. There’s a good chance it would have been little more than something to make them laugh. Really…who needs coloring books when your house is in splinters? But it worked for us as we needed it at the time. All that aside though…what good are any earthly preparations when our souls are in danger?

How many people that fill their basements, put in hidden floors in their homes, build indestructible shelters, and whatever else they do, prepare their souls with as much diligence as they prepare for the end of the world?

If we looked at statistics alone…what are the odds that any one person will experience a disaster of any kind that is so debilitating they can’t get some kind of help within a few days? National response teams say you need to prepare to survive on your own for three days, the average length of time it takes help to reach you in a major disaster. Three days. That’s the average time anyone would need to survive without help after a disaster. And how many people are effected to that extent in their lifetime? Thousands? Millions? We’re talking three days where you can’t get to any kind of outside help, store, business, phone…anything. How many?

What percentage of people in America must survive on their own in disaster type, life threatening situations? With no help or contact with anyone?

I don’t know the answer to those questions. I know there are many that are affected in disaster type situations in any given year but how many of them are completely cut off from the rest of the world so that they must rely only on themselves for survival for even the three days recommended? Whatever the number I’m absolutely positive that 100% of the population of America, of the world, will be effected by death. Not just by death but by their own death.

You might experience a disaster situation that puts your life in danger. You might find yourself in a situation where you are completely cut off from all outside help. You may wind up needing to use only what you have on your person, in your vehicle, or in your home to stay alive for hours, days, weeks, or less likely months or years as the survivalists fear. But I guarantee that you will be affected by your own death.

Survivalists prepare for what they call ‘the end of the world as we know it’. They prepare themselves to depend on no one but themselves for years (in some cases). They look ahead to what might happen, to what could happen, and they prepare for what they imagine might affect them in their lifetime.

Preparing for a disaster that could happen might come in handy someday if that disaster ever does happen. It might give you useful skills that can be utilized in your everyday life now. It probably will give you supplies that you can rotate through and use on a daily basis…unless you have a 5 or 10 year supply of what they call meals ready to eat or MRE’s, then you may not want to eat them if your life depends on it.

But what has all that preparing done to get them ready for the absolute, guaranteed experience that they will have with their own death and the judgment they will face as a result?

I know that the Lord has His chosen people. I know that He has determined who will spend eternity in heaven and who will spend it in hell. I know that. But I also know that Scripture speaks of faith comes from hearing the Word of God. I know that Scripture speaks of the Lord giving up the unbelievers because of their unbelief.

If any of the people that spend even a small part of their lives prepping for a disaster that may never come put the same amount of time into Christ…what would happen with their life? What kind of fruit might their preparation bear?

What kind of future should we prepare for?

Eternity?

Or a disaster that could happen?

What are you preparing for?