The Truth: February 2004

Well a lot has been going on at Pursuing the Truth Ministries over the past few months. We have been getting an increasing number of emails from people all over the world. It’s interesting because the same thing happened last year at this time. We have a number of new members to our newsletter email list. God bless you all.

New radio time in the Philadelphia, PA area. We are now on prime time every Sunday morning from 11:30 to 12:00 am on WNJC 1360 am. The president of the company likes our show. He said that he had to move some things around and decided to give us one of his prime spots. He isn't raising our rate either. He normally charges $150 per half hour for our spot. We pay a little more than that for the entire month! Praise God for favor! Remember that we are still on in the Virginia on WMRV 94.5 FM in the Lynchburg area on Sunday evenings from 7:30 - 8:00.

The New Website. I am still working on the new website. I have a lot of files to convert to the new layout. I just finished converting all of the sermons just a couple of days ago. I’m excited about it because it will be a great project for me. So stay tuned for the updated Pursuing the Truth Ministries’ website.

Please pray for Debby. She is a lady on staff at Pursuing the Truth Ministries who had a heart attack a week or so ago. She is doing fine now. However, she is recovering and feeling pain. Remember her and her husband, James in your prayers.

Also pray for a man named Brian. He was just married to a lady I work with this past December 17th. He was diagnosed with viral meningitis. It is fortunate that it is viral meningitis since that is rather common. We know that bacterial meningitis is deadly. In any case, continue to pray for him and for his new wife.

Would you pray for a friend of my wife and I. Her name is Tanga. Pray for health and a prosperous life. I think of her often because she and her husband are real "good people." I pray that all would go well with them and that she would fully recover and be healed from anything that would come against her body and her family. God bless you, Tanga.

Continue to pray for Juan. He is the cancer patient we have been asking you to pray for. Things did improve as far as he and his family getting assistance. Pray that he would recover from the cancer and return to great health.

I’m sure that most if not all of you have heard about the tragedy that has hit Asia. I am referring to the tsunamis that hit several coastal areas killing thousands. This death toll is expected to rise because of disease brought on by contaminated water and lack of food.

What is even more impressive is how people have reached out to help the survivors by donating money and other items. There is one church in my area that will give something like $60,000, which is 100% of the estimated Sunday offering. There are links where you could go and get information on how you might help. To top it off, Microsoft even had information about helping the tsunami victims.

However, with all of the good that is happening because of this tragic even, I must say that it brings about somewhat of a disappointment of sorts to me. Why does it take tragedy for people to reach out and help at this magnitude? Imagine for a moment the amount of money that has been collected to help. Even the United States of America has pledged millions.

These are very noble gestures, but at the same time it brings up troubling realizations in my mind. Now, let me say again that the tsunami incident is the most tragic disaster that I have ever known. However, there is tragedy going on every day around us. People are losing their homes because the mother or the father was laid off. Someone has to give up their home or possessions because of a catastrophe in their own lives. Why isn’t the type of passion for giving evident in these situations? Why aren’t their funds, foundations, organizations, and the like to help these people in need? Why are we not passionate like this all of the time? Why is tragedy so powerful?

I went through a situation over the past couple of years after being laid off from my job. I thought at one point that I would loose my house because there was not enough income coming in to pay the mortgage and the taxes in addition to the other expenses. I told some people about my predicament and I was well pleased beyond measure at the support that was provided me, both financial and spiritual. A pastor that I never met except via email sent a donation to me. My own church insisted that I use the benevolent fund that was set aside (I believe in helping people so Pursuing the Truth Ministries set aside a percentage of each offering to put in a benevolent fund to be used by those in need. I pray that fund grows to thousands of dollars).

These people that I never met came to my aide. No it wasn’t as tragic as tsunamis, but for me there wasn’t much difference because it would have been traumatic. God showed me how true Christians operate as true Christians. The good thing here is that people do respond to the plight of others even though it’s not a major catastrophe. Now what if that was normal for all times? Not that we should give at all times and for all things. What if we were sensitive to the plight of the family next door to you? What if you were concerned about that person who is struggling to get by and is also a member of the same church? Pastors. What if the funds for your church were used to help those in need in addition to ministry instead of for the luxuries that they usually purchase?

I can only imagine the impact if people responded to the personal tragedies that we face. Of course one would complain about users and abusers of such benevolence. However, that will always be. What if Christians didn’t have to worry about what they would eat or drink? We could say, “God will take care of them.” However, what are you going to do? Remember those who are in need.

Being concerned doesn’t mean that you have to give because you might not have enough to give. However, you can help with emotional and psychological support. You could be a friend for them and just encourage them and work with them and help those people in need that you know. It went a long way for me. It was strength to my soul knowing that people I never met were praying for me and active in helping me. Tragedies are powerful, but the activities they spawn can be caused by just plain ole Christian love for one another. What do you think?

Have you ever wondered where God is? Have you wondered what God is thinking about at any given time? I sometimes think of those types of things. What is God doing at any given time? What is he thinking about or getting ready to do? Where is he anyway?

The presence of God is an interesting, perplexing, and yet comforting thing. It’s interesting because He knows everything that is going on and is aware of everything. It’s perplexing because that boggles the human mind. How can He see me and someone across the planet at the same time? It’s comforting because He can and I can have the confidence that I am never alone.

The president of WNJC radio asked for my opinion about the tragedy in Asia. He asked what my take was on it. Was God judging us or what? Why didn’t God stop the tsunami? Better yet, why didn’t he stop the earthquake in the first place? Why doesn’t God put an end to all of the pain and suffering that goes on in the earth?

The truth of the matter is that we don’t know. Bad things happen to all people on the earth. Jesus said that the rain falls on the just as well as the unjust and that the sun shines on the righteous and the unrighteous. As tragic as it may sometimes be, the truth of the matter is that we are all susceptible to pain. Some people may not go through a catastrophe such as a tornado, earthquake, hurricane, or volcano. However, we all have experienced something that went very awry in our lives.

I remember on the news a day or two before Christmas how a mother, father, and one child was killed in a head on collision. Why Lord? Why did they have to die? Did God warn them? We reason that he must have and that they didn’t listen. However, that is not comforting enough. Three innocent people died because someone else lost control of their truck going in the opposite direction on a major highway (the driver of the truck was killed too). All that remained was an orphaned child. Why Lord?

The answer is that we don’t know. Does this mean that God is unjust? Of course not. It only means that we don’t understand and we should come to grips with that. We humans have this disposition that we have to have a reason why. Well sometimes and many times we have no reason why. We don’t understand why things happen the way they do. It is obvious that it is not for us to understand.

We should remain faithful to God no matter what. That is a hard thing to say considering the potential of disaster that is on this earth. However, that is the truth. We have to remain faithful to God even when we don’t feel like it. We have to summon all the energy that we can to remain faithful to God even when things go awry. Job did it. Jesus did it. Paul did it. Peter and John did it. Many early Christians did it. Se we should do it to.

Think about it. Why should Christianity have continued when it first began? As soon as adversity struck then people had an excuse to say that God must not be in this because there is too much pain. However, their faith in God transcended their own pain and even their own life.

We don’t know why things happen the way they do. We Don’t have the answers as to why God seems to be silent (I don’t think that He is silent though). We should just rest in God no matter what. Find a way to remain faithful regardless of the adversity.

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