Trust

The Battle is Not Done

/ pastorpete51 / 3 Comments

Yesterday, being Father’s Day, I chose to sing “This is My Father’s World,” at Discovery Villages. This is not only one of my favorite hymns, but with war raging, both in the Middle East and Ukraine, it is easy for our hearts to become anxious. We close our eyes and imagine the bombs bringing down buildings. What was once only a distant possibility, has become a daily nightmare both in Israel as well as Iran. Along with military targets, innocent men, women and children are buried under rubble, others are fleeing for their lives, wounded and terrified. “Where is God in the midst of all of the chaos?” the world asks. That is when the assurance of the final stanza rings loudest, “Though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.” This hymn rings true to our hearts, not only because of the poetic mastery of the hymn writer, but because it is a reflection of a deep truth of scripture.

Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. Psalm 46:10

Now we may not all be in the middle of a warzone, but every believer has their own battles and battle scars to prove it. When we are in the middle of the worst, we need to remind ourselves that God has not fallen asleep at the wheel. No matter our situation, God remains firmly in control of both our lives as well as the affairs of earth. But we like children riding in the backseat, want to know, “When are we going to get there?” In my experience, God rarely tells us the answer. Instead, He helps us to learn how to trust Him, even when we don’t get filled in on all the details. Whatever you need to trust Him with today, why not take a moment to be still, and then pray, “God teach me to be still. In the middle of this battle and help me to trust you with every detail of my heart!”

Preparing for the AI Storm

/ pastorpete51 / 7 Comments 
Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations. Joel 2:1-2 ESV

There is a storm coming called artificial intelligence, the likes of which we have never seen. It is hard for us to even imagine the power of this new force that is no longer coming, it is here and growing more powerful daily. Whether on the topic of medicine, or national defense, AI is viewed as a tool to be used, and an uncommon urgency seems to have gripped our society to develop it as fast as possible. It makes me wonder if anyone stopped to ask why, and what will be the outcome of turning those segments of our society over to this brand-new force. We are either at the point now or soon will be that some AI model somewhere will know the names and personal information of virtually every single person on our planet. They will or are in the process of consuming all our works of literature, art, and theater. Every star, every discovery, every medicine will be part of its database. Even every state secret, every weapon system, and the internal structure of every unit in our military is only just beyond its reach but only for now. How should we prepare? How should we as Christians think about how AI will affect us and the work of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? There has never been an adversary like the one we are facing. Yet, no matter what lies ahead, we need to remember that there is still no one like our God. There will never be any power greater than His. If He is on our side, who can be against us? So, let’s prepare, but not fear, plan but not panic and keep walking by faith because with the strength that only Jesus gives, He has promised that we will not faint! This week we sang, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” The message that Helen Lemmel wrote about trusting God in confusing and difficult circumstances is never more true than now. When we don’t know what to do next, who to trust or where to turn, we must turn our eyes of faith towards Jesus, and then “The things that are of earth grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace!”

God’s Secret Place

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment 
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Psalm 91:1 KJV

I love hiking up into the woods, and finding a quiet spot to just sit, and listen to the songs of the birds, the buzz of a stray bee or the rustle of small animals in the brush. For me that is my secret place, but on the day that Jesus died, the kind of secret place that needed to be found, was not a wooded glen, but rather place for Him to be buried. So, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took down the body of our Savior and wrapped Him in linen cloths. Then they carried Him to a tomb cut out of a rocky hillside and gently laid Him on a stone shelf. They hurried to finish before sunset, because by the Jewish law they must finish before the Sabbath began. Last of all they quickly rolled a stone over the entrance and headed home. But that was not the end of the story. Jesus wasn’t placed in His tomb because He had failed, Death had not defeated Him, neither had sin won. Instead, behind that stone, in the secret place, He rested in the shadow of the Almighty. He had given His life into the hands of His Father, and now He simply rested until the moment when the stone would be rolled away. Maybe, the shadow of death has fallen across your path today, and you feel forgotten, broken and defeated. But just as the darkness of the tomb was not the end of the story for Jesus, so it is also not the end for anyone who will put their trust in Him. He has chosen a Secret Place for us for a season, so that in its quietness we may hear HIs voice, inviting us to trust Him and to rest in His shadow.