November 19, 2025

When kids do school projects depicting our solar system, they have to use strings, rods, glue or some kind of material to hang or fasten the planets in place. But planets have no suspension contraption. Pictures from space of our home planet are stunning. There is no cable holding it from the top, no Atlas holding it underneath, no beam with roller bearings that runs through the middle. It just hangs there in space, spinning, orbiting and tilting as if it is guided by some invisible hand. Why doesn’t it slow down? Tops spin on their points, but inevitably slow, wobble and fall. What keeps the earth from slowing down, or just plunging at a terrifying speed into the bottomless abyss of space? It seems that life is a bit more precarious than we care to think.

There are times when it seems as if everything on the earth is in free-fall and it is difficult finding any handle to grip for stability. Today is one of those days. People that you trusted to be in charge or ones that you respected, even from a distance are revealed to be more names on the mountain of disappointment. Every day the news reports the betrayal of leaders, and then comes the reports of the betrayal of reporters, leaving the observer wondering if he can believe anything or anyone. A.I. is supposed to save the day, but now A.I. has been caught in a number of lies. I know that it is not everyone, but is seems like it. It is sort of like the kid who found out one day that his dad had another wife and children in another town. What is going on in my world?

Are you ever tempted to read the news more than your Bible? One of the benefits of hearing a great deal of bad news is how the Lord can use this to make you tempted to read your Bible and never the news! What a gift God has given to us through his Word! For example, Psalm 116 is a wonderful prayer for a season like this. The Psalmist was so jaded, so frustrated, so discouraged that he said, “All mankind are liars.” (11b) But that is not how the Psalm begins nor how it ends. This is a prayer of testimony. God has rescued his servant from a deep night of the soul and body. At his lowest point he concluded that there was no one to trust. “All mankind are liars.” I.e. The whole world is a mess. I am a mess. Everything is in free-fall. V.10 says that he really believed this. It really felt awful. However, the Lord sustained him and rescued him and now, he has written this song to give testimony to God’s faithfulness through it all.

Life in these shadowlands is often marked by disappointment, but disappointment will not last. God is faithful through it all. The earth will not fall into abyss of space. Oh no, “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD.” (V.13)

Grace and hope,

Bob