A Haunting Alienation

   by Janie Cheaney

     "We can know this: that ever since humans came into being, they've been haunted by Something Else."

     "This is their Creator, breaking through the veil of creation to reach them. The solidity of atomic bonds and molecular structures is no illusion, for 'in him all things hold together' (Colossians 1:17)."

     "Our universe is as real as a snow globe, but a wider Reality holds it, and will one day shake it. We see from inside the globe, as though through smoked glass, but then face to face."

     "Then I and my husband and our brothers and sisters in Christ will finally know ourselves, as we are fully known." 

 

     

Broken City 

Conclusion by Lynn Vincent

     Lynn claims to wake up happy in the morning because the world is ending. 

     "Not happy in suffering. But happy in hope - in God's plan, however inscrutable it may be. 'We may fear that God's designs are all against us,' wrote Matthew Henry." 

      But as to God's own people, even that which seems evil, is for good. "He will give them the expectations of their faith, the end he has promised, which will be best for them." 

     "When some people of Israel returned from captivity in Babylon, Jerusalem was a broken city. But under God's almighty hand, they overcame corrupt officials, antagonistic historians, and (enemies of the rebuilding)." 

     "Like many of us, they were caught between the way things are and the way they used to be. But pining for the past cannot fix the future. And having only a light for our paths and a lamp for our feet, we cannot see how these evil days will lead to "that which will be best." 

     "My plan is to pray for the welfare of my broken city today and to trust in God for tomorrow," she wrote.

Broken City & False Gods 

Column by Lynn Vincent, praying for our nation today, and trusting in God for tomorrow. 

     "Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (Jeremiah 29:7).

     "Pray for Babylon?" the Israelites must have thought. "Pray for our captors? For this broken city with its pantheon of false gods?"   

      "I confess, I don't pray very often for my own broken city, or for America herself. If Scripture is our guide - it is - it seems America may already be under judgment. Might God send us a Cyrus?"

      "The Cyruses of history, along with God's penchant for worthy reversals of fortune, give me hope that evil and unrest are signs that history is unfolding exactly as it should."

     "Scripture says it has to be this way. Things have to get worse before Christ returns. To see the Scriptures being fulfilled in my lifetime builds my faith."

Tomorrow: Lynn's conclusion 

     

Still Wrestling

Conclusion...Janie Cheaney 

     I don't understand such willful obtuseness. To me it says this is much more than a political struggle. It's a spiritual one bound up with the conundrum of Israel itself; a secular nation built upon divine covenants. 

     A people like no other, with a history as fraught and mystifying as their founder's wrestling match with the Lord. Israel wrestles still, with modern day Philistines. And with the Lord. 

     I have no settled opinions on the future of this tiny nation, only that it remains at the center of the world. 

     "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!" (Psalm 122:6), and especially pray that they be reconciled with their Messiah before He returns. 

      

 Israel, Past and Present

From a column by Janie Cheaney

     Israel's story - from King David to David Ben-Gurion, from Philistia to the Gaza Strip - is always "news." 

     What hold does this land have on our imagination? When Hamas terrorists boiled over the border to slaughter over 1,000 Israeli civilians in October, they sent the world on fire. Such barbaric acts are not unheard of.  

     The bloodlust in Rwanda in the 1990s was equally horrific, and on a much larger scale. Warlords in Africa and drug cartels in South and Central America regularly splash their gore across the news, and then we hear no more about it.

     But every time Israel is attacked, or when it strikes at a target, the world trains a critical eye for weeks. The IDF hovers on the edge of all-out war, while hysterical denunciations rain down on them from all over the world. 

     This much is obvious. Hamas militants didn't suddenly "break out" from under Israeli aggression. They didn't somehow bring about Israelis being "subsequently killed." 

    Rather, Hamas militants butchered and raped and pillaged and returned to cheering crowds in Gaza, parading the bodies of their victims as the Philistines must have paraded a stripped and blinded Samson in the same city.

 Tomorrow: Cheaney's conclusion 

     God's test may contradict reason.

     Obey anyway. 

     God tests the tender parts of my life.

     God's tests are designed for our growth and strength. 

     Fire burns away impurity. 

Prophecy Fulfilled

     Mary's child breathed his last. She saw the sword Simeon had foretold, piercing his body and her soul as well. 

     When the risen Savior appeared to his disciples, he said, "Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." 

     After he arose, having told them to wait until they were given "power from on high," the disciples and other believers, including women, about 120 in all, spent days praying in an upper room." 

     Among them were Mary and Jesus' half-brothers. This is the last we know about Mary, except for a report that later, she may have lived in Ephesus, where her new "son," John, was ministering. 

     Two short New Testament books are believed to be written by James and Jude, both half-brothers of Jesus.

Tomorrow: Winston Churchill