OBLIVIOUS

Have you ever preached for a rigid legalistic church?  Do you know what it's like to try to survive in this when the Bible says that the Law will kill; but the Spirit will give life? Few realize the killing fields of Law.  The weight of legalism is threatening and staggering.  Good people wither and die under such regime.

Yet, God calls us to survive; even learn in the center of it.  Don't be oblivious to hope.

For those who feel they are about to die; I encourage you that due to the resurrected Jesus you have reason to live right in the center of anything that wishes to entomb you. Breathe.  Relax.  Believe.  Admire.  Focus.  Dream.  Wait.  Where you live in this invisible prison of yours has kingdom keys which can unlock the sturdiest of prison cells.

Just how green must be the grass where we live?

Very!  Certainly!  Absolutely!  Unequivocally!

Regardless of pressures, frustrations, and deep troubles, the grass which we tread is fundamentally quite green.

Bring your issues to the table of distress.  Hold them.  Stroke them as you absorb the difficulty of your particular demise.

Reflect upon the pre-teen slave boys, pried from their Mommas and Daddies, in the Middle East who are awakened at 4:00 a.m. daily to hit the fishing waters to make money for the Power Agents of the region.  Some will die again today because they are so young and cannot withstand the duties assigned.  Others among them will wish they were so fortunate to die.

Ponder the young and beautiful teen girls who are made sex slaves of Drug Lords; once again extracted from their parents and siblings.  These of hopeful future, today, are drugged into submissive stupor.  They are real, authentic, wonderful girls whose lives are trashed by senseless egotists who care for no one other but themselves.

Sit for a moment at the kitchen table with the couple who discovered it was their son in the fatal wreck at 2:00 this morning.  What would they give to have your worries? What would they trade to study his handsome face while listening to the utmost privilege of him telling of his plans for college?

Try to sense the sheer stun of the family of seven as we hear the news this morning that their trailer home--and everything in it--was destroyed by fire last night. Everything is gone.  It's just stuff we point out; yet our stuff seems to carry immeasurable value.

Finally, as one account after another of actual horrid living conditions could be expressed, consider the multitudes who hear from the doctors this morning of their beloved, Hopeless, Malignant, Brain-dead, or Will be as a vegetable.  

Are these what you are facing?  Would you trade your stress for any of the above?  It's doubtful.  Please be encouraged.  I am not naive to radical difficulty.  Neither am I naive to the fact that much of what fills our minds is a thief with designing tactics to rob us of gratitude from the green grass of right now.

While we all hurt....while we each take our turn in varying levels of direct pain....we must not live oblivious to the sweetness that also fills our days.  Regardless of those serious troubles which take our breath away, there are deeper and darker conditions that would cause us to volunteer to keep the ones we have.

Thank you, God, for my right now.  Please, please reach into the many camps of torture, homelessness, and lonely...and give them the joys like I have.