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It all looks grim!

 

Terrible flooding in Texas and my home country of New Zealand; fires all across Europe; war continues in the Ukraine and Middle East and other countries; devastating earthquakes; COVID and other infectious viruses; sickness, depravity and evil; world financial instability. You may be forgiven if you feel depressed with all that our world offers. Yet history shows us that we have had war since the beginning, when sin entered the wonderful paradise God gave us—war between our spiritual and natural selves as well as brother against brother and nation against nation.

My cold lingers on, and I’m tired. It's easy to become discouraged. I watched a Podcast called Outside of Sunday yesterday and felt embarrassed at how blessed I’ve been considering what the person being interviewed had been through. Indeed, there is always someone worse off than yourself. It’s the ‘self’ bit that continues to plague us all. As I was reading in the Old Testament about the punishment God sent upon his people because they kept turning away from Him, I felt such hope when He also restored them. He continued in deep love for his people then as He does today.

God loves us. He doesn’t always shelter us from difficulties, but he walks through them with us and has promised to never leave us. I trust Him. I put my hope in Him in what appears to be a hopeless world. He loves me, and He has a plan for me. I completely believe that. When I give him my feelings of hopelessness and my anxiety, then He gives me his perfect peace. I have all I need; I have Him.

May you experience His perfect peace and his constant presence in your life, no matter what you might be going through today. God bless you.

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