Five Smooth Stones

"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." Isaiah 55: 10, 11

    The colossal chaos of the past year has flattened me out like Wile Coyote under a fallen boulder in the desert. Wearily, I have come to know the meaning of daily picking up my cross and following my Savior. After Elijah stood up to the prophets of Baal, thereby ticking off the evil Queen Jezebel, he was laid out flat under a broom tree, disconsolate and depressed. I can relate to him. To me, the giant who confronts me is a twelve-foot tall politician who wears a mask and speaks lies while silencing me. But then, I pick up my Bible and remember the boy David who slew Goliath with five smooth stones and a sling. There wasn't anything magical about the stone; it was his unwavering faith in the power of the living, Almighty God that conquered the foe.

    When Martin Luther went up against the corrupt Catholic church of his day, he wisely used the Word of God as his weapon. "I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force," he stated. "I simply taught, preached and wrote God's word; otherwise, I did nothing... the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything." It's not us, it's the Power behind us that gets the job done.

    When the powers-that-be in our world threaten to loom so largely over us that all we want to do is lay out flat on our beds with the curtains drawn, then we are looking at the problem, not the Problem-Solver. With courage and conviction, get up, load your sling with the Word of God and stand up to that ogre, the devil - because that's the driving force behind chaos and corruption. 

    "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." Mark 13:31