April 2, 2025

I was not too concerned about the soggy weather today until I saw a line of animals in twos forming outside of my office window. You know the old joke, right? Noah’s wife asked Noah where the bees should be kept and he said, “In the ark-hives.” You can admit it, you laughed at that right?

But the weather is crummy. For our friends in the northern part of the lower peninsula and the Yoopers, it has been awful. In seasons like this, I am reminded how comforting it is to know Who made the weather and Who controls the weather. Just this morning I was reading a couple of letters from our missionaries who serve in animistic settings, where the peoples live in fear of the gods. Adverse weather is terrifying and leads to even more layers of fear that the gods are not satisfied and displeased in some way. No matter what one does, there is an underlying uncertainty that the gods are never satisfied. The burden of that is hard to bear.

When life is hard, where do you go for comfort? If you believe that the difficulties of life are directly related to the displeasure of the gods, are you going to turn to the gods for comfort? Of course not! Think on that for a minute. I want you to consider what an incredible gift God has given to us in his Word. In the animistic and pagan religions there is no space or place for the devotee to be able to turn to the god for comfort and compassion in suffering. Suffering is crushing and demands more and more sacrifice. How awful! Compare that to the Psalms.

There are 150 Psalms and just over 70 of them are Psalms of lament. Plus, there is an entire book in the Bible called Lamentations. God gives us language for our prayers so that we will be able to come to him in our sorrows. That is amazing! God invites us to come to him and even gives us words to use so that we know that He really means it. We rightly sing as a church, “Lord from sorrows deep I call.” What a blessing it is to be able to call upon the Lord from our sorrows. What a blessing it is for our missionaries to be able to let others know that there is the one and true God who can be trusted in sorrow because He has born them and carried them upon Himself.

Grace and peace,

Bob

Sunday’s Text: Luke 11:14-23