(You) got to have faith!

John 16:31-33
"You believe at last!" Jesus answered. "But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

John 14:1-3, 18, 27
1"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

18I will not leave you as orphans;

27Peace I leave with you; my
peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your
hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Dad called me today to tell me about the Engineering school shooting in Virginia. It shook me up quite a bit. Why am I alive and talking to my Dad on the phone while over thirty people are dead and will never talk to their parents again? It made me stop and think. I shouldn't take a single moment for granted. So often I too much attention to school and that is all I focus on. There is a whole world of people around me that are hurting and need a savior. What happens to them if someone was to come into College Park tomorrow and start shooting engineering students here? It isn't death that scares me so much as knowing what I could have done and haven't. It scares me to lose the people that are dearest to me, but I know that I will see them again. We have a promised eternity together.

Ecclesiastes 1:16-18
16 I thought to myself, "Look, I have
grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge." 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.

18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;

the more knowledge, the more grief.

This is true if I don't keep my focus where it should be. Wisdom and knowledge do bring about grief and pain and longing to know more, unless I understand where this knowledge comes from and look at in light of eternity.

Isaiah 35
Joy of the Redeemed

1 The desert and the parched land will be
glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.
3 Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;

4 say to those with fearful hearts,
"Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you."

5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the
wilderness and streams in the desert.

7 The burning sand will become
a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

8 And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not journey on it;
it will be for those who walk in that Way;
wicked fools will not go about on it.

9 No lion will be there,
nor will any ferocious beast get up on it;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,

10 and the ransomed of the LORD will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Someday all of this sorrow will be over and gladness and joy will overtake them. Isn't that a wonderful promise? I really do believe that! Thank God this is the only hell that we will have to experience.

Please pray for the families of these students at VA Tech. I can't even begin to imagine the pain that they are going through. How terrible. I feel sick to my stomach.