Good Morning World!

 Good Morning World!

That's how I felt coming out of the trance they put me in for the angiogram. I was coming out of a well, but I could still hear and understand that I had absolutely NO blockage, and (after 4 hours of observation) I was free  to go home.  Very big answer to prayer, thanks so much.  I know most of you have been through these things and worse, but as a first-timer, it was a bit daunting.

And now, on to the future.

This last week we have celebrated Australia Day, a national holiday, celebrated much like America’s Labor Day, marking the end of summer.  Then alongside of this, I heard on the news that January 27 was the 70th anniversary of the closing of the infamous Nazi death camp called Auschwitz .

Australia Day has long been protested by the Aboriginals and has mistakenly been re-named by some "invasion day".  But this year, there’s a growing effort to correct some misconceptions. This is not the day, as some believe, that we credit the British Captain Cook with “discovering” Australia and opening the door for the dreaded white man with all their foibles.  In all fairness, something like that did indeed happen but not on that day.

What did happen on Australia Day was that the nation stepped away from complete control from Britain, giving all Australians, white and black, complete independence and autonomy to rule themselves as a nation, much like America. The difference here, is that Australia has remained  a Commonwealth country.

"Oh," they countered, “what makes Nazis so curiously horrible was that they were aggressors to their OWN people!.......we never did THAT!" They went on to remind me that Abraham Lincoln said of the Civil War, "A nation divided against itself shall not stand."

However you may interpret what we’re seeing every day on the news, it’s hard not to agree with those who point to Scripture and insist that this is nothing less than those “last days” about which Jesus prophesied:

"But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people." (2 Timothy 3:1-5) 

It seems obvious that those who preach Woke philosophy are trying to set everyone up against each other.  Loyalty, honesty and patriotism seem to be going out of style..........We need Saviour!

We stayed the first four months of last year  in Hawaii in a mission guest house provided by First Baptist Church of Pearl City while Tony was teaching.  It could have been labelled a bit 'minimalist' in terms of furnishing, but and the lack of clutter made it all the more a comfortable home to us.

I had to laugh when I noticed the only wall hanging, suspended up near the ceiling. It had obviously been made by a loving church member somewhere along the way. In lovely adored letters, the picture read simply, "Be Kind".  

But as the weeks and months stretched on, my laughter turned to musing, and I found myself more than once thinking to myself, "How true".

Without a doubt, these are troubled times, and if God’s Word is any indication, they’re only going to get worse before they get better. I’m reminded that, as a Church, we are not called by God to “fix” everything around us, even if we could. What we are called to, though, is to be that light shining on the hilltop. As the world grows darker, our light will be all the brighter. And part of our calling can be simply stated in those two words, “Be kind”.

I dare ya.

(Waiting for the rapture), 

Marsha