–Louis L’Amour  (Reilly’s Luck)

       “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.”
                         –Isaiah 35:3 (NKJV)
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“Back in the saddle again.  Back where a friend is a friend…” (Gene Autry) and here we go back to the Psalms.  In this day of confusion, yes, even in the church we are to cling to the Word of God.  He is constantly watching over us, then why, oh why, don’t we take that to heart?  Martin Luther said, “Let him who wants a true church cling to the Word by which everything is upheld.”  Since we are the “temple of the Holy Spirit” is it imperative that we have true worship in our hearts and minds.  Let’s ponder the words of Psalm 84.

          1 — How lovely is Your tabernacle, O LORD of hosts!
          2 — My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
          3 — Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young–even Your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God.
          4 — Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they will still be praising You.    Selah
          5 — Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage.
          6 — As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools.
          7 — They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.  (NKJV)

       God watches over us, and care for us through and in every situation.  Yes, even sometimes he allows us to suffer and even die–but He never leaves us our of His sight.  We are His focal point and in His presence eternally.  I had to grin when I read a phrase by W. Graham Scroggie, “Pain, sorrow, and disappointment are transmutable:  we may climb the rainbow through the rain.  Our pilgrimage should be a continuous triumph in and over circumstances.”
       We are to worship in every situation of life.  As the writer here expressed a genuine zeal to worship God in the temple, we should be doing the same, and also realizing that we are His temple.  We should have an extreme passion to worship the Lord from His temple–ourselves.  However, most of the time we live our lives selfishlessly and then think we are worshipping on Sunday.  The writer of this psalm years for the temple, in reality, he was yearning for God.
       One of the ways we worship in the temple of the Lord (ourselves) is when we worship in the difficult times of life.  Baca is a “word thought to indicate a tree or shrub that grows in arid places.  Geographically and psychologically, it’s really the valley of hardship or weeping, and a long climb up and out to Mount Zion where stands the temple.” (George O. Wood)  This is the place of the soul–what are you doing about your soul?  Are you stuck in a place like Baca?  Or you on a pilgrimage passing through that valley and as you do worshiping and praising God all along the way?  As we recognize we are traveling toward God, worshipping in His temple, we can expect to have our burdens transformed into blessings.  We go from strength to strength.

                     “Farther along, we’ll know all about it,
                     Farther along, we’ll understand why;
                     Cheer up, my brother, live in the sunshine,
                     We’ll understand it all by and by.”
                                 –W.B. Stevens

                         –Louis L’Amour  (Where the Long Grass Blows)

       “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have.  For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.'”

                         –Hebrews 13:5 (NKJV)
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Greetings from Maryland.  Vacation with my eldest is an enjoyable experience, but I didn’t want to leave you in the dark about to my health and whereabouts.  Trust you are staying well, calm, and are contented.  Speaking of contentment, I want to relay two stories that came to mind.  I remember a Gene Autry movie where there was a woman journalist from the East posing as a cattlewoman.  Gene asked her what type of cows she raised and she had no idea as to breeds when her eye caught the sight of a can sitting on a shelf:  Condensed Milk From Contented Cows.  She then promptly responded, “I raise contented cows.”  The second story also comes from a movie, The Northwest Passage.  The soldiers were starving living on only a few grains of corn.  One man blurted, “Don’t you get tired of corn?”  An elderly woodsman replied, “Nope.  I’m content with that.  Now, if I was to be expecting roast beef, sausages, and cabbage, I wouldn’t be content with a few grains of corn.”
       So I ask you–are you content?  Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.”  (4:11, NKJV)  Christians throughout the world have a better understanding of this verse than American Christians for we are seldom content.  We are not content with circumstances, with the food we have, we the vehicle we drive, and on I could go.  When a new phone comes out it has to be purchased for we are no longer content with the one with have.  Pintos and cornbread for supper–no way!  I want steak and a baked potato with all the fixings.  Or some of you would cry for tofu with greens.
       We need to relax and be content with the guidance of the Lord; thank Him for the blessings that He has bestowed upon you.  We need to learn to silence our soul before the Lord.  Here is a paraphrase of Philippians 4:11 by Jeremiah Burroughs, “I find a sufficiency of satisfaction in my own heart, through the grace of Christ that is in me.  Though I have not outward comforts and worldly conveniences to supply my necessities, yet I have a sufficient portion between Christ and my soul abundantly to satisfy me in every condition.”
       So what is contentment?  Burroughs puts it this way, “Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every direction.”  Contentment is quietness of the heart.  It is a heart that is not distracted by the things of the world, nor is it agitated when things seemingly go wrong.  It recognizes the working of the Holy Spirit throughout the circumstances and situations of life.  The heart is gracious and thankful that it walks in union with Christ recognizing the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  No matter what comes the soul rests in the Lord.
       One grows in contentment; it doesn’t come easily and it doesn’t come naturally.  It comes through the power of the Holy Spirit and faith in the Word of God knowing that God will take care of His children.  Learn to be content.  Burroughs writes, “To be well skilled in the mystery of Christian contentment is the duty, glory and excellence of a Christian.”
       Take a deep sigh, and I’ll write again when it is convenient.  We’ll be heading up to a cabin in Pennsylvania this weekend.  I will be content sitting in front of a campfire, enjoying God’s great cathedral of nature.  Let me pass on a saying that I saw in my travels since tomorrow is the first day of Fall.

                                   Autumn carries more Gold in its Pocket than All the other Seasons.

Therefore, be content with what comes your way, and also in the season of life in which you find yourself. 

                         –Psalm 91:11 (HCSB)
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Mercy me!  A couple of noteworthy things before I get to the devotion for today.  First of all, this September I will have been writing the “Daily Paine/Echoes From the Campfire for twenty-one years.  I started it back in September 2001, just prior to the attack on the Towers.  I changed the name from the Daily Paine a few years back when I retired.  Along with that I have been writing about Miles Forrest since February 2010.  Hard to believe.  With Miles Forrest there are now three novels for sale on Amazon about his life and adventures:  Return From Tincup; Winter of the Wolves; Call to Justice.  It has been interesting to say the least.
       Second, the ol’ steel mount is ready to go.  All the supplies have been packed tightly using a Double Diamond and the Lord willing we’ll be heading out in the morning for Maryland.  I made sure my slicker wasn’t packed on the bottom.  In saying that I’m not sure when an Echo will be sent out.  There may be several, there may be only a few, and if I take a notion to really relax, there may be none.  In the meantime, grab a copy of my new book about Elias Butler–Ticket to Danger.  It’s available on Amazon and is the sixth book about the life of Elias Butler.  The stories are made up but in reality Elias Butler was my Great-Great-Great Grandfather who was born in 1794 in Campbell, VA and died in 1875 in Morgan, TN.
       Now on to the thought of the day.  I am borrowing (again) from one of my favorite devotionals:  God Is No Fool, by Lois A. Cheney (1969).  I have used this little book over and over again for thoughts, for Echoes, and for my own personal contemplations.  Ponder the thoughts.

               “. . . and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
   
               Did you ever wonder what you would do in the time of crisis?  Days pass into months of seemingly endless safety, but there always lurks the sudden pain, the sudden grief, the unexpected interruption that jerks life from its normal path.

               I’ve watched some face the chasms of life and fail.  I’ve watched others face them and walk confidently across.

               As a Christian I feel a special obligation to face life.  But I’ve long wondered whether my faith would be strong enough; whether my courage would be broad enough; and whether I would be able, alone, to meet the challenge.

               And one time, it came like a dawning.  The Christ seemed to angrily remind me that a Christian never faces anything alone.  The great promise of Christ is to be  there, with his hand on our shoulders.

               We do not face life alone.

Remember that in the next pandemic, the next hurricane or other storm, the next blizzard, or while you thirst in the next drought.  In the midst of any and every crisis, storm, terror, or pestilence we do not face it alone.  And I’ll close this note like I do my Saturday Coffee Percs–Go With God!
        Vaya con Dios.

                         –James 4:10(NKJV)
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Sometimes I wonder, I really do.  We pray for revival, and rightly so, but has the nation gone too far?  Yes, there is always an “IF” clause with God with repentance, but even when the people repent, there are many times consequences that have been set in motion.  John Gardner wrote, “The renewal of societies and organization can go forward only if someone cares.  Apathy and lowered motivation are the most widely noted characteristics of a civilization on the downward path.”
       Upon studying the Book of Judges there seems to be a pattern:  sin, servitude, supplication, salvation, downward spiral.  It is that downward spiral that concerns me for each time it goes further and further down.  

               “And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers, by following other gods, to serve them and bow down to them.  They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way.”
                               –Judges 2:19(NKJV)

The people became more vile, more decadent, more perverse.  The following verses of Judges 2 tells of a woeful situation where God says, “I also will not longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left before he died.” (2:21)  There seems to have come a point where God sends the consequences of the peoples’ actions.
       Let’s look at another example–King Manasseh.  Manasseh was indeed an evil man and king.  Read 2 Chronicles 33, and in verse 9, it says, “So Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed before the children of Israel.” (NKJV)  Manasseh is a sad story and he was taken “with hooks” and “bound with fetters” to Babylon.  In his captivity and affliction he “humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers…”  The Scriptures say that Manasseh “knew that the LORD was God.”  Here was genuine repentance.
       Yes, Manasseh repented, he tried to bring revival to the people upon his return.  He tried to undo all the evil that he had previously committed, but then we see that the people did not listen, but adhered to their evil ways.  “Nevertheless the people still sacrificed on the high places, but only to the LORD their God.” (33:17, NKJV)  They were worshipping God by using pagan practices and methods; in other words, worshipping with the practices of the world.  Too far gone, they faced judgment.
       I wrote the above to preface some startling statistics from Barna.  Have we faced the same downward spiral?  Have we, the people, gone too far?  Of Evangelicals, 39% says there is no absolute moral truth.  Startling!  Thirty-three percent believe that the Holy Spirit is not part of a “Trinity” but only a symbol of God’s power.  Another 30% say that salvation can come through good works.
       Now I ask, how far is too far?  The Book of Judges proclaims that the people “were in great distress.” (2:15)  It is important that we remember, that even though God has a plan for the Church, for every believer, there may come a time when they have to go into “captivity.”  When judgment came, all went to Babylon as slaves, even the righteous.  It is there we see the examples of Daniel and his friends.  How far is too far?  I have no idea, only God knows when the scales have tipped so far as to bring judgment.  There could be a national revival, but there could also be the return of the Lord and then true judgment would begin.