Life can have its moments.”
              –Lou Bradshaw  (Hickory Jack)

    “We should like you, our brothers, to know something of what we went through in Asia. At that time we were completely overwhelmed, the burden was more than we could bear, in fact we told ourselves that this was the end.”
              –2 Corinthians 1:8 (Phillips)
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Tears, we all have them, from the days of childhood when a toy was broken or we felt the hand of a parent on the backside, there were tears.  On into the teenage years and there are tears of sorrow, of young love, of broken relationships.  Then through the years of adulthood, parenting, seeing loved ones depart across the Great Divide; these all brought tears.
    Some people cry in an instant.  I’ve had many students sit before me with crocodile tears.  I remember one student who would come to my office, and I would let her cry.  After a few minutes of that, I barked at her, “That’s enough.”  She cut them off, and never shed another one.  There are those people who find it difficult to shed a tear, but inside the tears are flooding the heart.  General Eisenhower said that he reserved his tears for his pillow.  They were private and not to be shown to the public.  There are catastrophes that may strike us, especially in areas where we felt the strongest that may produce grief and despair, and we feel cut off from God.

         “All through the night I wept full sore,
          But morning brought relief.
          That hand, which broke my bones before,
          Then broke my bonds of grief.”
                   –Charles H. Spurgeon

This morning let’s take a look at Psalm 30:1-5 (HCSB).  This portion is a psalm about tears.

    1 – I will exalt You, Lord, because You have lifted me up and have not allowed my enemies to triumph over me.
    2 – Lord my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me.
    3 – Lord, You brought me up from Sheol; You spared me from among those going down to the Pit.
    4 – Sing to Yahweh, you His faithful ones, and praise His holy name.
    5 – For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor, a lifetime. Weeping may spend the night, but there is joy in the morning.

Here, David praised the Lord that he was not vanquished.  The Lord was there for him in his time of need and despair.  I like verse one from the NIV, “I will exalt you, O LORD, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me.”  We need not despair, our enemies will not be there to gloat over us.  They will not stand and point a finger and sneer at us, for the Lord will lift us up.  No matter how deep a hole we have fallen into the Lord will reach down to lift us up.
    In one aspect when we think of night we think of the darkness and the unknown that may stalk us in the night.  But night can also represent, in the spiritual sense, a vanquished foe.  Do not despair when we find ourselves in the dark of the night; remember, there is a brighter tomorrow.  W. Graham Scroggie said, “At nightfall Weeping comes as a guest to tarry, but in the morning Joy comes to stay.”
    Let me ask you, what does the future hold for those who put their faith in the Lord?  One thing for sure, when we are in a hole, when we are downcast and darkness looms over us there is hope.  Grace becomes more and more important.  Perhaps the grace of God cannot be appreciated until you sense a need for it.  You may weep, moan, cry, and groan all night in despair.  It may seem that all hope is gone and that this calamity you find yourself in will last a lifetime, but look up, redemption draws nigh.  There is joy in the morning!

Some rivers run deep and some shallow and it takes a trained eye to look beyond the surface and see the depth.”
              –Cliff Hudgins  (Viejo and the Ranger)

    “Your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”
              –1 Corinthians 2:5 (KJV)
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The storms of life, trouble and trials, obstacles along the journey do come at time to help us build our character, but more often they come to confirm the quality of our character.  A person with a weak character may crumble when those trials come.  On the surface, just being with them from day to day, you might think they have got it all together, but then, wham! they fall apart.  I remember a situation I had with a teacher once.  All year long she had been telling her class that all they had to do was trust in the Lord and that He would always be with them.  Then a crisis came to her, and she crumbled.  She moaned and cried–I finally had to send her home.  I told her that she destroyed in a few minutes what she had been teaching all year.  Where was her trust?
    Character is built for a purpose, and crisis comes to test its endurance!  Character is not a showy thing, in fact the depth of character might be hidden until a storm begins to rage, or when a task must be undertaken.

         “Great things are done when men and mountains meet:
          This is not done by jostling in the street.”
                  –William Blake

Sometimes you can look at a person and quickly see their weakness–they run swallow.  Others are whiners, cry-babies, creampuffs, or to be more modern, snowflakes.  Look at them wrong and they melt and go into panic mode.  One thing for sure, if there isn’t character within when the storms rage, when the trials come, there might be a breaking.
    John Huss was facing the prospect of being burned as a heretic (how about that for toleration and political correctness?).  He was tried before the Council of Constance where he declared on July 1, 1415:  “I, John Huss, trusting to be a priest of Jesus Christ–for fear that I would offend God giving a testimony under oath–cannot recant the articles of faith which false witnesses attribute to me, for I did not preach, assert, or defend them.  I must not recant all my statements, for this cannot be done without offending God and infringing upon the sacred authorities.”
    One hundred years later, another stalwart man made a similar statement at the Diet of Worms on April 18, 1521.  Martin Luther declared in his own defense:  “Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.”
    “In extreme crisis we do not necessarily test our faith.  Our faith is expressed spontaneously from decisions previously made.  This is what realistically sustains and strengthens us for service to our God and nation.” (Reuben V. Johnson)  We need to be firm as those giants of faith from the past.  We need to set our faces like flint so that we “may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13 NKJV)
To stand–shows character!  To stand–shows faith!  For it is written, “But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” (Matthew 24:13 – NKJV)

Failure was never permanent unless a man deliberately made it so, that disaster was something to meet and forget and walk away from.”
              –Ernest Haycox (Canyon Passage)

    “But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
              –Luke 22:32 (NKJV)
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I came across something in my morning readings that I wanted to pass on for you to ponder.  It was from one of the early church hermits.  Now, this is not to argue, agree or disagree, on the life of the hermit, whether it was right or wrong.  Surely the motive was right, to be alone with Christ and separate from the world.  They may have missed the mark by not being more evangelistic, but they were sincere individuals.

         “Someone asked a hermit how he could avoid being shocked when he saw monks returning to the world.  He said, ‘Think of hounds chasing a rabbit.  One dog sees the rabbit and begins the chase, the rest of the pack simply see and hear a hound running.  They will join the lead dog for a while, but soon tire and return the way they came.  Only the first hound continues the chase until he overtakes the rabbit.  The desertion of his companions does not discourage him.  Thickets, briars, and cliffs will not turn him aside.  Scratched and wounded, he continues to chase the rabbit.  So it is with anyone who runs after the Lord Jesus.  We keep our eyes on the cross, leaping over every obstacle until we come to him.'”  (Bernard Bangley, “By Way of the Desert”)

    There is a key word in the first sentence, that is the word “shocked.”  It does not say grieved, or sorrowful.  We should be grieved when a person deliberately walks away from the Lord, but it really shouldn’t shock us.  Jesus said that we should count the cost.  Many will find the cost too great, or at least in world terms.  Some will be choked by the cares of the world.  
    The person that comes to my mind is Demas.  Paul writes in Colossians that Luke and Demas sent their greetings.  It seems that Demas was, at least for a time, a traveling companion of Paul.  However, when Paul writes to Timothy, he pens these words, “For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed…” (2 Timothy 4:10)  Another version puts it this way, “Demas has deserted me because he has loved the things of this life…” (NLT)
    To be in love with the world, and the things of the world is to turn away from Christ.  The hardship and sufferings, and there are various kinds of each, become too much for them.  They do not have the vision of heaven nor the person of Christ etched in their heart.  But the true believer, no matter his physical condition, no matter the obstacles in the road, will not turn back.

The mountains do not mind the storms.  There have been many storms upon these rocks.”
              –Louis L’Amour  (Brionne)

    “Then the Lord will appear over them, and His arrow will fly like lightning. The Lord God will sound the trumpet and advance with the southern storms.”
              –Zechariah 9:14 (HCSB)
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I hope you have noticed that I always try to start the week, Monday, with a thought about the Psalms.  With Dorian on the horizon of many people on the east coast this Psalm is very appropriate.  David, being a shepherd, and then a soldier, knew about living outside through storms.  He may have found refuge in caves, or he may have just had to hunker down, let the storm blow through, then look around and pick up the pieces.  Take a look now at Psalm 29 (HCSB).

    1 – Ascribe to Yahweh, you heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
    2 – Ascribe to Yahweh the glory due His name; worship Yahweh in the splendor of His holiness.
    3 – The voice of the Lord is above the waters.  The God of glory thunders—the Lord, above vast waters,
    4 – the voice of the Lord in power, the voice of the Lord in splendor.
    5 – The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon.
    6 – He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion, like a young wild ox.
    7 – The voice of the Lord flashes flames of fire.
    8 – The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
    9 – The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the woodlands bare.  In His temple all cry, “Glory!”
   10 – The Lord sat enthroned at the flood;  the Lord sits enthroned, King forever.
   11 – The Lord gives His people strength; the Lord blesses His people with peace.

It was just last week when we planned on going swimming.  We had just gotten in the pool, when “CRACK”, lightning sounded.  It scared my youngest and I’ll tell you, it got my attention as well.  Lightnings and thunder are a way we hear the voice of God.  Being from Colorado, I have seen and been in some terrific lightning storms.  I was playing ball, when lightning hit, I saw another time lightning strike the breaker box for the lights on a baseball field and burn a hole through the metal.  I have been in the high country hunting, with it lightly snowing and all around lightning was flashing.  It can be an scary thing, it is always an awesome thing as is the voice of God.
    David is showing us here that we should react with awe, but not in panic for the power of the storm simply shows His power and holiness.  Maybe if we would see lightning and thunder as God’s holiness we would act more reverently and become more holy ourselves.  Look at the throne of God as seen in Revelation 4.  It should bring awe and wonder to us.  Storms can be fearful things.  I read where Caesar Augustus would wrap himself and hide in a corner during a terrible storm.  Parents may try to calm their children, by saying the thunder is just God moving His furniture in heaven around.  
    But after the storm there is a calm and freshness.  I love the smell after a rainstorm.  They can bring devastation, so keep that in mind when you look at the holiness of God.  Those who do not choose to surrender to Him are asking for the storm of devastation to descend upon them.
    As Christians, however, we do not have to fear, in fact, we should not fear.  Jesus is Lord over any storm:  physical, emotional, or spiritual.  His voice is predominate in any storm, therefore, do not let your focus be on the terrifying elements, but listen for the voice of the Lord.  One day everyone whose name is not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will hear the terrifying voice of the Lord.
    So now, when you find yourself in the midst of the fury of a storm think of the holiness of God.  When you see the lightning flashing, recall verse 7, “The voice of the Lord flashes flames of fire,” or another version the NLT puts it this way, “The voice of the Lord strikes with lightning bolts.”  Then rest upon the last verse of the Psalm, “…the Lord blesses His people with peace.”  We can, we should, have peace in the midst of the storm.

              “From every stormy wind that blows,
               From every swelling tide of woes,
               There is a calm, a sure retreat:
               ‘Tis found beneath the mercy seat.”
                        –Hugh Stowell