Had Enough Yet?

We can become tired or discouraged as we walk through this world, as we face challenges and even opposition to our faith. But, we serve a strong God, who is present with us to give us the resources we need to walk through this life in victory. Isaiah 40 states:
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall,
31 But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

God's strength is unlimited, and because we know Christ, we have access to His might, to His resources to enable us to walk through this world fortified and hopeful.  Maintaining a sense of hope is sometimes not easy, but we can be built up in our faith, realizing the faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word.  Our exposure to the Word will help to build us up in the Lord and can help us to maintain the hopeful attitude in Him that He desires for us to have.

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The Word of God promises us hope, even when we experience opposition and pain; God is our refuge, and because we have accepted Christ as our Lord, we can allow Him to govern our thoughts and give us strength. Acts 3 relates the words of Peter:
19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,
20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before,
21 whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

PJ Media's headline caught my attention; it read, "The Vote You Probably Didn’t Hear About."  My resident "FOMO," or "fear of missing out," kicked in, so I read the article. 

It had to do with a ballot measure in the state of Texas which has implications for religious freedom. The article reported that the proposal...

...is an amendment to that state’s constitution that reads: “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not enact, adopt, or issue a statute, order proclamation, decision, or rule that prohibits or limits religious services, including those conducted in churches, congregations, and places of worship in this state by a religious organization established to support and serve the propagation of a sincerely held religious belief.”

According to the Texas Values website, the proposal, which was passed by the legislature as Senate Joint Resolution 27, simply prohibits the government from closing churches or other places of worship. Texas Values cited the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of government closures.

The amendment passed 64 to 36 percent, garnering over 925,000 votes in favor of it.

The Texas Values website offered this quick analysis, stating that the proposal, known as Proposition 3:

• Prohibits government agencies and officials from issuing orders that close or have the effect of closing “churches, congregations, and places of worship” in Texas.
• Further secures the Texas Freedom to Worship Act, passed during the 87th Regular Session, by preserving it in the Texas Constitution.
• “Place of worship” is defined in Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 110 to include non-church buildings or grounds where religious activities are conducted.

An article at Christian Headlines.com related:

John Greiner, who pastors the nondenominational Glorious Way Church in Houston, called the measure crucial. He said individual churches and people who go to church “should be in charge of their own health care decisions, their own risks-to-reward behaviors.”

“The church should be the place where people go to get healed. There’s lots of churches and some don’t believe in healing. … They should be free to close if that’s what they want to do, but I don’t think that the government should impose that upon any group at all,” Greiner told Religion News Service.

The writer of the PJMedia article, Lincoln Brown, believes something even deeper is at work, "people have simply had enough."  He writes: "The revolution...is played out by people going to the ballot box and re-taking control of school boards and local and state governments." He adds, "They are people who have had their fill of a government, media and society that treat them as either a commodity or an unfortunate symptom of American life...The collective American sponge is saturated with TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, genders, violence, lies, mixed messages, Newspeak, division and fear. People simply want to wring it out."

Don't you want to breathe a sigh of relief?  I think there are a number of people who are tired - tired of seeing their freedoms infringed upon, tired of fighting on a variety of fronts concerning the coronavirus, tired of seeing Biblical values trampled by some in authority.  But, now is not the time to give up - we can draw strength from the Lord each and every day and know that, as Acts 3 says, "times of refreshing" are available to us.  Galatians 6 tells us not to be weary.  What we read or see on the news can discourage us, but God's Word will encourage us.

The good news is that, after being physically closed for a number of months and subject to restrictions that prevented in-person gathering, the Church is still open.  And, that means you and me - and we should be open to what God wants to do in us, open to the movement of His Spirit, and open to touching our communities with the love of Christ.  There are still struggles, certainly there are threats; there is persecution worldwide, but God is still on the the throne, He is in control, and He provides power to His people.