Palm Sunday and a Cross

Palm Sunday begins Passion Week, which includes The Last Supper, Jesus’ Garden of Gethsemane experience, his crucifixion and his victory on Resurrection Sunday, or Easter.

Sources say Passion Week is so important that three of the gospel writers – Matthew, Mark and Luke – devote a full third of their contents to reporting this week, and the fourth gospel writer, John, dedicates the entire last half of his book to “the week.”

Jerusalem reportedly claimed a population of about 50,000 at the time of Jesus triumphal entry, but many had come to celebrate the Jewish Passover, and Jerusalem bulged with perhaps 150,000 people on Palm Sunday.

Here’s the paraphrased Palm Sunday story (Matthew 21:1-11, 14-17):

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them
right away.”

This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: “Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey’” (Zechariah 9:9).

The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees (John 12:13 tells us they “Took branches of palm trees”) and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest!”

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”

The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.

“Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.

“Yes,” replied Jesus. “Have you never read, 'From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?” And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.

Jesus had true followers, but the general crowd turned on him when influenced by leaders fearful of losing Rome’s favor. Johnny Cash sang “Jesus was a Carpenter,” which contains these words: “It was on a storming Sunday when he (Jesus) rode to old Jerusalem / And the palms they cast before him / Were the crimes they laid against him.”

Writer Bill Petro says the throngs threw down garments on the pathway to cushion Jesus’ ride – an Oriental custom still observed on occasions – as well as palm fronds, the symbol of triumph and the national emblem of an independent Palestine. Jewish religious officials feared Jesus would cause the Romans to destroy the Temple and their nation. Petro says there had been a dozen uprisings in Palestine in the 100 years previous to Palm Sunday. Most of those revolts were subdued by Roman force.

John 1:11 records, “He (Jesus) came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” The same crowds that were crying out “Hosanna” were crying out “crucify Him” five days later (Matthew 27:22-23).

I don’t want to be just a “Palm Sunday believer” – a person who’s happy to follow Jesus during good times but ready to disown the Lord when his popularity seems to fade and there are crosses to bear.

Ernest W. Blandly wrote the lyrics to “Where He Leads Me.” That old hymn contains these words: “I’ll go with Him through the waters…I’ll go with Him through the garden… I’ll go with Him to dark Calv’ry…(Refrain): Where He leads me I will follow / Where He leads me I will follow / Where He leads me I will follow / I’ll go with Him, with Him all the way.”

Beggar Images Seen through Glass

No one looking for a handout seemed to stand nearby as my wife and I viewed many of Rembrandt’s etchings of beggars.

Some time ago, Carol and I inspected some of the Dutch artist’s etchings at the N.C. Museum of Art in Raleigh. An etching is produced this way: a drawing is engraved on a metal plate; ink is applied to the plate: paper is pressed against the inked plate to produce an image on the paper.

Standing alongside a few Saturday afternoon museumgoers who appeared well fed, well-cared-for and even well-to-do, I scanned small images that were framed and under glass. They were drawn by Rembrandt between 1629 and 1654 and had become part of a modern-day traveling show called “Rembrandt Van Rijn: Sordid and Sacred, The Beggars in Rembrandt’s Etchings.”

The exhibit featured 35 small prints – one was only slightly larger than two inches by two inches – from the John Villarino Collection.

I doubt that many real beggars – maybe none – saw the traveling art show. Probably no one we would classify as a beggar visited the exhibition and laid weary eyes on Rembrandt’s images of alms seekers.

I doubt that anyone working at a rescue mission or social services office said to fellow workers, “The museum is showing artwork that features beggars. Maybe we ought to take some of our clients to see that show.”

No, I don’t think anyone thought about bussing beggars to review Rembrandt’s renderings.

Dutch society of Rembrandt’s day esteemed work, thrift and self-restraint and looked down on beggars. Artist Hieronymus Bosch, a Rembrandt predecessor and fellow Dutchman, painted beggars as almost indistinguishable from his depicted demons, says writer Gary Schwartz.

Rembrandt often drew and painted pictures of poor people. Critics say he usually portrayed beggars with “sanctity and individuality.” He often used images of beggars to portray Bible characters.

Dr. John I. Durham, in his book “The Biblical Rembrandt,” presents Rembrandt’s intrigue with Christian faith.

“His first artworks were on Biblical themes, as was his last painting,” Durham says. Of Rembrandt’s known work (285-290 paintings, 300 etchings and 1380 drawings), 40 percent involve Biblical themes.

Rembrandt made many depictions of the “return” scene from Jesus’ parable about a lost, or prodigal, son who asked for his inheritance, spent it foolishly and returned to his father’s embrace (Luke, 15).

Perhaps Rembrandt saw himself as a spiritual beggar drawn to the “there but for the grace of God go I” images of street people.

Schwartz suggests that Rembrandt’s humane image of the poor and disabled may have “contributed at some time or other in the course of history to the kinder treatment of real beggars.”

As a child, I heard the thirteenth century nursery rhyme “Hark, hark, the dogs do bark; the beggars are coming to town….” I listened to Bible stories about poor people and knew funds-challenged residents who lived in my rural South Carolina community.

The first street beggar I remember seeing was an African-American man who sat on a sidewalk and leaned against a building fronting the main street in the City of Greenville, S.C. That man wore black leather “holders” to cover what was left of legs amputated close to his bulky torso. I never heard him speak when someone dropped coins into a cigar box sitting in front of his stumps.

My grandparents sold “real cow’s milk and butter” to a few Greenville city folk on Saturday mornings, and I, as a child, often accompanied them. We would make our rounds to customers and then shop at Woolworth’s and other stores. I could hardly pass that main street beggar man without thinking of this line from a poem my childhood pastor, the Rev. James H. Thompson, often quoted: “I complained I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.”

As I stood in an art museum and viewed Rembrandt’s centuries-old images of beggars, I wondered how many of us prefer to see poverty artistically interpreted and viewed through glass – the glass of television screens.

I suppose art still helps us deal with life.

New Body and New Teeth

Michael, probably in his forties, sat recently in the break room of the Gulistan Carpet dye house in Wagram, N.C. As I walked by, he opened his mouth and revealed a set of dentures.

“See; I got my new teeth,” he said.

A schoolteacher taught me this rhyme about teeth: “Thirty-two white horses upon a red hill, prancing and dancing, and now they stand still.”

Michael’s 32 horses escaped from his red hills (his gums), and 32 polished artificial ponies replaced them. He had the last of his teeth extracted at Sexton Dental Clinic in Florence, S.C. That 24,000 square foot clinic boasts that patients “come from all over the world and from all walks of life.”

“I had 15 teeth pulled,” Michael said. “I went out of there with nothing but gauze in my mouth. I ate a lot of soup. My mama said she was about 24 when she lost her teeth.”

Months after his teeth-yanking session, Michael drove to Florence to get his dentures.

Ever see someone inspect a horse’s teeth to determine the animal’s worth by roughly figuring its age? According to Wikipedia, a horse's incisors, premolars, and molars, once fully developed, continue to erupt as the grinding surface wears down. A young adult horse has teeth that are 4.5-5 inches long, but the major parts of the crowns remain below the gum-line. The rest of each tooth slowly emerges from the jaw, erupting about 1/8 inch each year. Upon reaching old age, a horse’s crowns are very short, and the teeth are often lost altogether. When a horse is old, he is said to be “getting a little long in the tooth.”

My mother, Eva, often joined her two sisters, Louise and Edna, in visiting their mother’s house. Our first-born, Janelle, was a pre-schooler when she accompanied Mother on one of those visits. Carol and I laughed when Janelle returned and announced, “Aunt Louise has fox teeth!” We figured the ladies had discussed false teeth.

Unlike other parts of our bodies, teeth won’t heal themselves. Baby teeth “come in,” and then we lose them, and permanent teeth (they often aren’t very permanent) appear. As we age, our teeth need fillings and crowns. Like Michael, some of us might leave this world without any natural teeth.

Christians have hope beyond teeth problems, hope beyond old age and hope beyond the grave. Our hope is in Jesus Christ who promises that believers will receive glorified bodies. I think we also will receive glorified teeth. God can construct or reconstruct body parts that might be missing.

Kenneth B Visscher says, “Take great care of your physical body you live in and cherish it, for it is that very same body which the Lord is coming to glorify. This is the same body that is destined for the appearing of Christ when He comes again and fashions your body like unto His body, which was raised from the dead. Right now, your body is corruptible, mortal, but your very body MUST put on incorruption, this mortality MUST put on immortality. It is the body you were born and live in now which will change. Every portion of your cellular structure and every part of your physical makeup will be brought into a holy image of Jesus.”

Our present bodies are “corruptible,” which means they will decay. “Incorruptible” means “not subject to corruption or decay.”

We read in I Corinthians 15:50-57:

“Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

“Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Christians have the promise of receiving glorified bodies. This promise should comfort us all, especially those who are “getting a little long in the tooth.”

Flashlight Batteries and Oil for Lamps

News that snow and ice would visit us last weekend caught me with one of our lamps not “trimmed and burning,” so I drove to Wal-Mart after work on Friday.

My wife, Carol, and I have my late parents’ oil lamp and one big flashlight, but someone gave us a large flashlight equipped with a small radio. I wanted batteries for that light-with-radio device.

In the year 2000, 17 inches of snow left us with no electricity for five days at our home in Southern Pines, N.C. Our electric “heat pump” was down, and we had no gas logs or kerosene heater (and we still don’t have those alternative ways to heat our home). We had enough charcoal to warm soup each noonday for five days. I looked like a hobo, Carol said, when I wore my overcoat and toboggan hat and hovered over a grill located out back of our house. Once in a while, I slogged to the driveway, cranked one of our cars and listened to some news.

Last Friday, I needed “C” batteries for the light-with-radio device. Many checkout aisles in Wal-Mart feature batteries, and not one of those displays had any C- or D-size batteries.

“I should have known not to wait till the last minute,” I told myself. “People have hoarded batteries, and now I won’t have any.”

I hurried to the Harris-Teeter grocery store. What a crowd! Looked like feeding time at a shark tank! I found a few C batteries and thanked the Lord.

I pushed my cart to find charcoal and lighter fluid. “Might have to grill out, again,” I thought.

Lo and behold! Hoarders had emptied a whole shelf of the cheap charcoal. I saw a few bags of a more-expensive brand and bought one, along with a small can of lighter fluid.

When I woke on Saturday morning, snow and sleet covered the ground, and sleet was still falling – but our electricity was still on. Possibly because of a bit of wind that came with the storm, ice had not accumulated on power lines or tree limbs.

Trying to buy flashlight batteries reminded me of the parable Jesus told about the wise and the foolish virgins. Here is that story:

“Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

“And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

“While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, ‘Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.’

“Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, ‘Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.’

“And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’ But he answered and said, ‘Verily I say unto you, I know you not.’

“Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 25:13).

The wise virgins carried extra oil in separate containers. The foolish virgins took no extra oil.

Jack Crabtree of The McKenzie Study Center offers these thoughts:

“The oil that the foolish virgins found depleted…is analogous to our desire for, belief in, and commitment to the eternal Life which God has promised. Many people will desire it; many will believe God's promise; many will commit themselves to wait for its realization. But only a few will find their desire, their belief, and their commitment in ample supply.

“For those of us who are foolish – in whom the desire does not run deep, the belief is not profound, and the commitment is only superficial and very fragile – our supply will soon run out. When the bridegroom comes, no longer do we really believe, no longer do we really want his Kingdom; long before, we had shifted our commitment to something else this world had to offer. But for those of us who are wise, our desire runs deep, our belief is profound and unshakable, and our commitment is more than superficial.

“Jesus said once, ‘Many are called, but few are chosen.’ He is saying something very similar to that in this parable: ‘Many are invited and will join in wait for the bridegroom, but few will actually remain to follow him to the feast when he comes.’”

A prayer: Lord, give us oil – and extra oil – for our lamps. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Wheat and Tares

“There are 200 million church members in America,” said Dr. Bailey Smith, speaking at Beulah Hill Baptist Church in West End, N.C., in 2003. “If they were all saved, this nation would be in better shape; there are always tares among the wheat.”

Smith of Atlanta served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1981-82. He grew up as a Baptist pastor’s son in Dallas, Texas and “walked an aisle” to receive Christ at age 5 because his “grandfather wanted him to.” He said his conversion really took place at age 10 when he prayed with his father. As a high school senior, he felt called to preach and pastored a church at age 19. He graduated from Quachita Baptist University in Arkansas and Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

Smith indicated that many churchgoers think they are “saved” but are not. He asked the Rev. Billy Graham why Graham often hinted that church members might need to accept Jesus as Savior.

Graham replied, “I myself was an unsaved church member.”

Preaching from Jesus’ wheat-and-tares parable (Matthew 13:24-30), Smith said that Jesus compared “the kingdom of heaven” to a wheat field. Jesus said an enemy sowed tares (weeds that appear as wheat) in the field, and workers wanted to pull up those tares. The field owner, fearing some wheat might get uprooted if hired hands tried to eliminate tares, told workers to wait until harvest time. At that time, tares would be gathered and burned and wheat brought into his barn.

“Farmers used to show me wheat and tares,” said Smith, who once lived in Oklahoma. “I couldn’t tell the difference, but if you open up the head and there are kernels of wheat, it’s wheat.”

Smith said some people believe they are Christians because they had “experiences,” were baptized when their friends were baptized, or because their parents keep telling them, “You accepted Christ when you were young.”

“What somebody told you that you did won’t save you,” Smith said. Paraphrasing 2 Corinthians 13:5, he added, “Examine yourself to see if you ever got it (salvation) or not. A lot of you have been inoculated from going to heaven – it’s called ‘walking a church aisle as a kid.’ There’s a lot of difference between a good man and a saved man; the difference is eternity. You can go down a dry sinner (in water baptism) and come up a wet one.”

Smith said that wheat and tares look alike.

“Only God knows the difference,” Smith said. “Can a weed grow? An unsaved person doesn’t grow in Christ but appears to. He can be a busy church member on his way to hell. Wheat and tares are planted together, progress together and are harvested together. Those who are deceived don’t know they’re deceived. The Devil doesn’t want you to doubt your salvation. He wants you to believe you’re saved. The Devil knows you are good, and he is smart. He’d just as soon you go to hell from a church pew as from a bar stool.”

These are Jesus’ words recorded in Matthew 7:22-23 (New KJV): “Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

Smith said a person might think he’s all right with God because he performs good works, attends a good church and hears good preaching. He told about a 19-year-old woman who confessed that her daddy had prematurely prayed the sinner’s prayer for her when she was young.

“You can believe in soap and die dirty,” he said. “To be 99 percent saved is to be 100 percent lost. The wheat is placed in the father’s house; the tare is bound and burned. We’ve had about 90 pastors get saved, and some music directors. I was a tare; Billy Graham was a tare. I believe all across this building we have tares among us.”

Smith quoted Romans 10:13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

As musicians played “Just as I Am,” Smith asked those needing to accept Christ to raise their hands. He led those who responded in repeating a sinner’s prayer.

“Some of you pray that prayer every time because you haven’t prayed it once,” Smith said.

Smith’s sermon challenges us to make sure we have repented of our sins and are trusting Jesus Christ to save us from eternal separation from God.

“But as many as received Him (Jesus), to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name…” (John 1:12, New KJV).

Haiti Needs Help and Prayer

January 15, 2010

The earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Tuesday, January 12, 2010, caused me to think of Jesus’ words recorded in Matthew 24:3-7:

“And as he (Jesus) sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, ‘Tell us…what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?’ And Jesus…said unto them, ‘…nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers (various) places.’”

“The New York Times” printed this about the recent Haiti earthquake: “Survivors strained desperately on Wednesday against the chunks of concrete that buried this city along with thousands of its residents, rich and poor…And the poor who define this nation squatted in the streets, some hurt and bloody, many more without food and water, close to piles of covered corpses and rubble.”

Was the earthquake – Haiti’s worst in more than 200 years – one of those Jesus predicted, or was it a direct judgment on Haiti?

According to “Wikipedia,” Roman Catholicism is the official religion of Haiti, but voodoo may be considered the country's national religion. Most voodooists believe that their religion can coexist with Catholicism…The belief system of voodoo revolves around family spirits (often called “loua” or “mistè”) which are believed to be inherited through maternal and paternal lines.

Russell Goldman, reporting for ABC News, wrote, “Some 80 percent of Haitians are practicing Roman Catholics. But despite their Christian faith, half the country’s population practices voodoo, an Afro-Caribbean faith in which practitioners cast spells, conduct sacrifices, worship spirits and believe in zombies, according to statistics compiled by the CIA World Factbook. Increasingly, evangelical Protestant faiths, like Pentecostalism, which stress a locally popular belief in an ‘unseen spirit world,’ have taken hold.”

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes in his January 14 blog: “Haiti is well known for its history of religious syncretism – mixing elements of various faiths, including occult practices…Haiti's history is a catalog of political disasters…In one account of the nation's fight for independence from the French in the late 18th century, representatives of the nation are said to have made a pact with the Devil to throw off the French (in 1791). According to this account, the Haitians considered the French as Catholics and wanted to side with whomever would oppose the French. Thus, some would use that tradition to explain all that has marked the tragedy of Haitian history – including now the earthquake of January 12, 2010.”

Mohler says many point to the Haiti earthquake as a sign of God's direct judgment.

“God does judge the nations – all of them – and God will judge the nations,” Mohler says. “He rules over all the nations and his sovereign will is demonstrated in the rising and falling of nations and empires and peoples…

“God's rule over creation involves both direct and indirect acts, but his rule is constant. The universe, even after the consequences of the Fall, still demonstrates the character of God in all its dimensions, objects, and occurrences. And yet, we have no right to claim that we know why a disaster like the earthquake in Haiti happened at just that place and at just that moment.

“The arrogance of human presumption is a real and present danger. We can trace the effects of a drunk driver to a car accident, but we cannot trace the effects of voodoo to an earthquake – at least not so directly. Will God judge Haiti for its spiritual darkness? Of course. Is the judgment of God something we can claim to understand in this sense – in the present? No, we are not given that knowledge. Jesus himself warned his disciples against this kind of presumption.

“The earthquake in Haiti, like every other earthly disaster, reminds us that creation groans under the weight of sin and the judgment of God…The cross of Christ declares that Jesus loves Haiti…Christ would have us rush to aid the suffering people of Haiti, and rush to tell the Haitian people of his love, his cross, and salvation in his name alone.”

A Prayer: Father, many Haitians are “dirt poor.” The recent earthquake added misery to their lives. Help us respond to the Haitian people in the manner of prayerful Good Samaritans. Help us avoid judging them in their time of need. In Jesus’ name, amen.

When Hard Times Come

When things don’t go well for me, I sometimes recall words from “Hard Times Come Again No More.”

Stephen C. Foster wrote that folksong in 1854, and it was popular in its day in the U.S. and Europe.

Here is that song’s first verse:

“Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears / While we all sup sorrow with the poor / There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears / Oh, Hard Times, come again no more.”

Chorus: “Tis the song, the sigh of the weary / Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more / Many days you have lingered around my cabin door / Oh, Hard Times, come again no more.”

The “Collins English Dictionary” defines “hardship” as “conditions of life difficult to endure” and as “something that causes suffering or privation.” “Privation” is defined as “lack of basic necessities or comforts of life.”

Foster’s song and the definition of “hardship” seem to mainly describe physical or circumstantial difficulties, but spiritual, mental and emotional hardships are also hard to endure and are not easily separated from circumstances and physical trials.

Someone said, “Your body and soul live so close together that they catch each other’s diseases.”

I have heard people talk about feeling so down-and-out that they “had to reach up to touch bottom.” One person described a season of depression when he “felt lower than a snake’s belly.” “Hard times” come to us in various forms, and they come to us all. Someone said, “Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.”

Hardships are part of life.

“There is no success without hardship,” Sophocles said.

Frank A. Clark said, “If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”

“Adversity reminds men of religion,” Livy noted.

Evangelist Charles Spurgeon said, “Stars may be seen from the bottom of a deep well, when they cannot be discerned from the top of a mountain. So are many things learned in adversity which the prosperous man dreams not of.”

“It is not until we have passed through the furnace that we are made to know how much dross is in our composition,” said Colton.

What about this verse? “And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction…” (Isaiah 30: 20-21).

Does God “give” adversity?

Sir Francis Bacon commented on his perception of God’s way of dealing with people during Old Testament and New Testament times. Bacon said, “Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God’s favor. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.”

Writer Jeanne Guyon said, “Adversity and affliction are not easy for anyone of us; nevertheless, the good thing is that the Lord is with us and directing us not to get anxious, but get effective…If we faint in adversity, our strength will be small. We must abandon every voice in order to listen to His Word...To penetrate deeper in the experience of Jesus Christ, it is required that you begin to abandon your whole existence, giving it up to God.”

The Apostle Paul said, “We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh (produces) patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope” (Romans 5:3-4).

Joyce Meyer said, “No one enjoys going through difficult times, but when we’re in the middle of a crisis, it’s comforting to encounter someone who has had a similar experience and has survived…Even if no good comes from our crisis other than our ability to help others, we still might one day say going through it was worth it all.”

Here are the words to “Lord, When I Hurt Inside,” a song by my wife, Carol Crain:

“Lord, when I hurt inside, I often question why all this pain had to be part of my days.

“Then you take me by the hand and help me understand, because you love me, and I can trust your higher ways.

“Though I may never know the reasons or the whys, to You, Lord, I can go; on You I can rely.

“My memories You will heal. You have and always will give me strength, peace and joy and victory.”

Trust God during good times; trust God during hard times.