Comfort in Dangerous Situations
Trouble is the purifying process and there is no joy without trouble. No-one will experience happiness without facing trouble first, although trouble can be of many kinds. Sometimes trouble makes people worse and people can even commit suicide while having a lot of money in a bank account.
The world is becoming more cruel day by day. Many governments spend a lot of money on weapons for ‘defence’. Young men and women spend a lot of time killing, violating and torturing. The aged go to many funerals. Living in fear and crying is not the best way of solving problems. Put your trust in God and He will do His part: “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that I will seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:1-4).
There should be no reason for asking God to bring peace to this globe because we are in the last days and problems are bound to come and face us. Now is not the time to ask for riches but instead to ask to dwell in the house of God. Those who are living are those who will see death, and the dead know not anything. Death will face us in different ways as we see our friends and relatives die beside us. This has to be so because now we are not immortal and everyone is dying at the pre-arranged time. We cannot die before we have finished our time on this planet: “One dieth in his full strength being wholly at ease and quiet. And another dieth in the bitterness of his soul and never eateth with pleasure. They shall lie down in the dust and worms shall cover them” (Job,23,25,26). “Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou has appointed his bounds that he cannot pass” (Job 14:5).
If we see our friends and relatives die, it is because they have finished their mortal life, even if we see a number die in a short time, killed by terrorists or soldiers. God has arranged everything: “Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?” (Lamentations 3:37). So we should be ready at any time, and never fear anything that comes to us, no matter how dangerous it may be. If we really obey the truth, then the truth will really make us free.
“If I wait, the grave is mine house. I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, ‘Thou are my father’, and to the worm, ‘Thou art my mother and my sister’. And where is now my hope? As for my hope, who shall see it? They shall go down to the bars of the pit when our rest together is in the dust’ (Job 17:13-16).
But does death really end it all? Does our hope end in death? Obviously, no! The grave is just a waiting place for believers: “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my death, worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall behold and not another, though my reins be consumed within me” (Job 19:25-27). So, my dear brethren and sisters, let us all take comfort by reading the scriptures (Psalm 91).
Sis Susan Ntchalachala (Kasungu, Malawi)
