April 1: Of helplessness and hope

Deuteronomy 18:1-20:20

Luke 9:28-50

Psalm 73:1-28

Proverbs 12:10

Deuteronomy 20:1: When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you.  

Deuteronomy 20:3-4: [The priest] shall say: "Hear, Israel: Today you are going into battle against your enemies.  Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not panic or be terrified by them.  For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory."

Overwhelmed.  Afraid.  Fearful.  For myself, for my children, for my family, for our future.  Particularly when I am exhausted, I am prone to such thoughts, to such feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and futility.  How do you beat back the pervasive influence of a culture that preaches self gratification, that rejects fact and reality and embraces self-indulgent fiction, that rejects authority and consequence so it can pursue selfish interests?  How do you teach children that poor choices have bad consequences when society celebrates indiscretion and inanity, turning vapid heirs and obnoxious families into wealthy celebrities, and declares them worthy of admiration and emulation?  How do you keep your kids on the straight and narrow when society demonstrates the importance of publicity, however distastefully it might be generated?  

And then I read of the man in Luke 9:38, who begs Jesus to heal his only child, who is possessed by a spirit that seeks to destroy the child.  The man is overwhelmed; he is helpless; all he has done, and all anyone else has done, has been for naught.  Not even the disciples could heal the boy.  But Jesus did.  

This is how one takes hope; this is why the verses from Deuteronomy I listed above are so important.  They are a reminder, one I sorely need - one most of us will need at many times in our life - that we do not have to be afraid, no matter how formidable the enemy may seem.  God fights for us; the victory isn't in our hands, it's in His.