September 2010 Are you discouraged over world affairs? Are you concerned about the crime wave that is taking its toll on the helpless elderly? Are you dismayed by a teenage callousness that robs and rapes and even kills? It is of no avail to wallow in despair. Nor is there help in cynicism. Cynicism is as great a sin as is complacency because neither accomplishes any good. I know of only one remedy when ones thinking gets out of control, and that is to relax in a conscious awareness that God is. The lovely yellow bud at the end of a long green stem sways gently against the lily pad that lies quietly on the surface of the lake. They have a secret, these two, and they rest in it. The ruby throated hummingbird joyously soars high above the deck and then dips deep below it only to return to the feeder and in lightning-like darts, sips of the pink nectar. He, too, knows a secret. Geraniums in their brown planter are a splash of color against the screen house, and the single deep red rose on the rose tree generously spreads its sweetness to the passerby. They, too, know something that enables them to fulfill their purpose. As for the Nazarene carpenter he told his secret to all who would listen: There is a He within me that is greater than he that is in the world. Of mine own self I can do nothing. The Father within me He doeth the works. Flowers, birds, animals know and live by what you and I hesitate to make a conviction and put into daily practice. There is a power greater than man and that power lives within us. We profess to be Christians; yet we straddle a fence. We say, God is, and then we sigh resignedly, But how do you prove it? The Bible states clearly, Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out. Let the non-believers go their way. Eventually they will learn. Remember Jesus rebuke to Peter? What is that to thee? Follow thou me. Let us who profess faith in the presence and power of God not dissipate it in worry and fear. Let us stand fast in our conviction that Òthe earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof, and it is He who will direct our paths as we turn to Him in unwavering recognition that He is. It is only as we demonstrate hour by hour our faith in the presence of God that we can experience the power of God in our lives and in our affairs.