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Showing posts with label Isaiah 40:31. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Isaiah 40:31. Show all posts

Friday, August 16, 2024

Just Keep Going

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

Here is a story about patience in life.

Text:  Lamentations 3:25; Isaiah 40:31.

 Winston Churchill is remembered as perhaps the greatest prime minister in the history of Great Britain. By the steel of his will, he led his island nation to stand against Hitler and eventually triumph in World War ll. But years before that victorious moment for the ages, Churchill found himself plunging through a succession of devastating trapdoors–each one worse than the one before.

In August 1929, Churchill had managed to bring in approximately $70,000 into the family coffers. That’s a lot of money even today. In 1929, that was an unimaginable amount of money for a single month’s work. He invested nearly all of it into the American stock market. He then jotted a note to his wife saying how pleased he was to finally reach a place of financial independence. Less than ninety days later the stock market fell through it’s own trapdoor and Churchill lost virtually everything.

It was a major blow. Churchill had experienced ninety days of financial security–and then the bottom fell out. For the first time in his adult life he had been on easy street enjoying the prospects of a comfortable future and then the trapdoor fell open beneath his feet and down he went.

That setback alone would be enough to send most any man into the dungeon of depression. But there were two more difficulties that waited quietly and patiently for Churchill to arrive. In 1931, after serving his entire adult life as a central figure in the British government, he was not invited to serve in the cabinet. This was another staggering blow to Churchill. He had been banished to the political wilderness. While Hitler was working full-time to build his war machine, Churchill, virtually the only British politician who saw the reality of Hitler’s threat, was put out to pasture. When he should have been center stage, he was banished to his country home where he wrote, painted, and built brick walls and cleaned out the ponds to stay busy. The great statesman was sent down to the minors to play Class A ball when he should have been starting in the All Star game. This defeat was even more bitter than the financial loss. It was heating up in the British steel furnace.


And then in the same year, while he was trying to hold things together financially and fight off depression of political defeat, he decided to take a tour of Canada and the United States. In New York City he looked the wrong way while crossing a street and was hit by a taxi traveling at thirty-five miles per hour. The accident sent him to the hospital, clinging to life by a thread.

In less than three years he had suffered three shattering transitions that had devastated him financially, then politically, and then in an accident that nearly cost him his life. In a letter to their son from the hospital, his wife wrote: “Last night he was very sad and said he had now in the last two years had three very heavy blows. First the loss of all that money in the crash, then loss of political position in the Conservative Party and now this terrible injury. He said he did not think he would ever recover completely from the three events.”

At that point, as he recovered in that New York hospital room, Churchill was fifty-seven years old. Nine years later, at the right moment in history, the government that had ignored him would turn to him in desperation. But he could not see the future from the hospital bed. In fact, his prospects looked so bad that at that moment one of his enemies was emboldened enough to pronounce a political eulogy: “Churchill is finished!” Famous last words! History proved that statement to be just a bit premature. 

(Adapted from Steve Farrar – Tempered Steel)


William James Roop

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Deep Roots

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

Here is a nice message I wanted to share from an unknown author.

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Are you cold? Does it feel like God is a million miles away sometimes? 

You attend church and don’t feel anything? You may be a praise singer, a musician, or the all important member who worships in the pew. You may be a preacher. Keep going. Keep coming. You’re normal, you’re human, and you’re still a Christian. I want to encourage someone who may be cold on God. You want to know why, but the answer doesn’t come, because there are no answers during a test.

When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man it goeth into the dry places seeking rest and finding none. I believe this is because dry places are the strongest places. 

“We are never stronger than when we are at our weakest place, because in our weakness his strength is made perfect.”

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It is during these times that there is nothing evident above the earth that would indicate strength, but something is happening in the unseen world, and your roots are going deeper in search of water. The bible says that when Moses struck the rock that the water flowed to the dry places, and when God does move in our lives, there is one thing evident that our trust in him and His love for us is a testimony to ourselves, that He is able to carry us through any situation. 

Keep being faithful to church. “but they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭40:31‬ ‭

Preach your last sermon; God will give you another one. Sing your last song; God will give you another one. The oil and the meal may run low, but it will never run dry.