A Christ Follower: The Journey

     The latest job report was not so good today.  7.6% unemployment.  Wow!  If you are one of those folks losing a job or part of one, this has to sting like a scorpion. If the ax all ready fell on you, then you know exactly what I mean.  And if you are waiting for the fatal blow on your livelihood, your anxiety level has to be high indeed.      Back in the day (You can tell a writer is getting older when he says things like this) For you text junkies... BITD...  (1995 to be exact) I went through a build down of my own.  I lost just about everything.  I lost the job and or ministry I loved more than anything.  I had to sell my home, and I had to go do something I dreaded with virtually NO support.  What made this worse than anything else is that, like many men, my identity was wrapped up in what I did.  I believed this lie completely.  So, needless to say I lost my identity; therefore, I began to see myself as a failure. (Yet another lie)... less than other men, (again a lie)  I saw n

   God is our refuge and our strength, a present help in time of need.   Psalm 46:1 When the whole world seems to be crumbling around us, there is a refuge.  When things are changing so fast we feel unable to find stability, there is strength.  When the river of life, in which our journey flows, becomes a raging rapid and a tumultuous flooding tirade of trouble and we cannot see beyond the bends and the rocks, there is help right now and right here in our present day. Trouble never takes God by surprise.  Though we may feel unprepared, unsure, insignificant, insane and out of control in this small raft or our own abilities, a Strong and Almighty hand is reaching toward us, offering us the stability and shelter of the Solid Rock.  That Rock is still Jesus the Christ. He knows our circumstances.  He knows our insecurities.  He knows our weakness, and He knows our inabilities.  Indeed... He knows more about us and our flaws than we know ourselves.  Now because He lives, even in our most