Make every effort to enter into HIS rest!

Hebrews 4:11a

Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter into HIS rest...

Someone just told me the other day this was the verse that should be my life right now... Let me explain. Steve's job has been laying off engineers for the past week or so. Tuesday we will find out how many more will be laid off. If he is laid off as an engineer, he can go to the ground as a conductor. Not the funnest thing for him, but he is so thankful, we are so thankful that he would even have that oppurtunity to still have a job and some income. It is a significant cut in pay and that is the hard part. This really struck a chord in me. I honestly can tell you that it scared me. I got scared... and then the perspective came. When I get on my knees about something, God reveals, God brings insight and wisdom on how to handle it and deal with it.

The other night, there was a story on the news about this women. Her name was like Charlie or something. She was being evicted from her home of more than 30 years because she was late on her mortgage. She had been through taking care of her terminally ill husband, losing jobs, etc... and now she was here. She comes on the screen to comment, "I am nothing now, I cannot even pay my mortgage, I am nothing. I have called the suicide help lines, and they tell me that you have so much to live for, I tell them no, I don't, I'd rather not be here because I am nothing now, I am going to be living in my car tomorrow." When I watched this, many emotions went through me, anger, sadness, disappointment, despair for her, for her soul, that she was so lost. I went to bed that night and I couldn't sleep, it bothered me because is that how we all feel, if we couldn't pay our mortgage, that we were nothing??? I couldn't stop thinking about this Charlie lady and what she was facing, and the attitude and mentality our nation and society has. Our country is in for a real wake up call people. Our country has been so prideful and so full of themselves, we all gotta have the latest and greatest, and if we cannot afford it, we'll CHARGE it. Hey, I've done it too, what is a mortgage???!!! Our country has gotten themself in deep. My great grandfather told my grandma one time, credit is gonna be the failing of this nation! Wow! True! Such foresight!

Think about just our area. Boise mill, Freightleiner, and Fibre are all shutting down, within the month. That is about a total of 10,000 or more families affected by this, in our little area. This is not including all the people already unemployed, out of work, and those who cannot find a reasonable job to support their families right now. Think of this, there will be plenty of ramifications in our area when these things come about... the crime will go up (domestic issues, burglary, robbing, suicides, abuse, etc..). People, relationships, will have a huge added amount of stress, people will have short fuses, do desperate things, get a little crazy, they are gonna be desperate and despaired... IF they do not have Jesus in their lives they will succomb to the pressures and give in, give up! I want to encourage those around me... we have hope. We have a God who will meet our needs. When I say that, I say that to myself. We are right there too, if not now, very soon. I do know some things...I know that I will not go hungry. I know that I will not be without shelter. My kids will have love and we will have the Lord Jesus Christ to comfort us. Those are the true needs in this life. And if I didn't have the hope of Christ, that he would meet my TRUE needs, then I would be so lost and wouldn't know what to do, I would fall down and give up! We have all gotten so caught up in our WANTS, we have become accustomed to that lifestyle, that standard, but consider what Jesus said, he opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble... let's be humble people. As the Body of Christ, let's press in, reach out to those around us, ask for help when we need it, give help when we can see a true need and we are able to meet it for them, let's be Jesus to people, they will see his light and want that too, people are gonna need something! Use this time to reach the lost!

I admit that I don't always do things the right way, or the Christian way, or what Jesus would want me to do, I know that. I am striving for that though, through all this. Life is hard here. Life is a journey that we are all on, we are gonna have joys and then we are going to have hard times that we can turn into joys. The only way to find that joy though, is to enter into HIS rest, his rest and his peace is beyond us, beyond our circumstances and what we can fathom. Jesus will comfort us, sustain and ultimately help us to be joyful through it... Amen? Thank you God!

I pray special blessings in your lives and those around you today, God bless!