Update
I want to take a moment to share an update on my cancer journey. First, thank you so much for your prayers and support. The messages that you have sent have been incredibly encouraging to me and Brenda, and I cherish each and every email. It means more than you will ever know!
I have been taking a combo of meds for several months, and all the indicators are positive. The initial plan was to start the chemo treatments in October, but because of the positive response to the hormone drugs, we started chemo and steroids in early June.
The “assault” on the body is serious, but it is also purposeful and effective. Thankfully the side-effects have been manageable. I get tired easily and need to rest from time to time, but I’m working full-go every day.
All things considered, I feel really good. Incredibly thankful for the Lord’s presence and power in my life, and blessed to have so many people praying and supporting us through this.
I have a request. Please, also pray for Kaitlyn, a 5 year old little girl who is battling liver cancer. She is being treated at Children’s Hospital here in Columbus, and she’s having a very rough time. Please pray healing for her body, strength for her mind, and peace for her heart. Thanks!
When the barriers are removed
Proverbs 29.18
“Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast-off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.”
The message of this verse is that when a society rejects the guidance and standards of God’s truth, people lose all self-control. The NLT translates the verse: “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild.” The CEV renders it: “Without guidance from God law and order disappear.”
The point is that untethered from God’s Word and timeless standards, society quickly spins into moral chaos.
This proverb applies directly to much of what is happening in America today. Having rejected the moral standards of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and having replaced it with radical subjectivism and relativism, our nation is drifting into moral chaos. There is no longer a national consensus about the standards of right and wrong. There is no longer a national culture that provides objective reference points for making moral decisions.
This leaves the door wide open for manipulative politicians who seek power rather than service, pundits who promote narratives rather than pursue truth, and provocateurs who sow division and seek to profit from it. Most worrisome is that this distortion is happening systematically in all three dimensions of American life: the private, the public, and the political. As Jeremiah 5.31 says, “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so.”
America is experiencing a crisis of cultural authority. The beliefs and principles that have been central to American society have lost their cultural power. As a result we are seeing increasing levels of chaos and violence, and political change can do little to resolve the problems. At stake are the authorities and moral assumptions that are necessary for shaping the public and private lives of Americans, and thus essential to determining how we will tackle its lengthening list of serious problems.
I fear we have done the very thing this proverb warns against: We have thrown off restraint.
However, the proverb also declares: Blessed is he who keeps the law. May the people of God hear and respond to this declaration. May we practice the truth and pray for revival. May we awaken to the reality of what is happening in our nation and take wise, effective action as agents of the kingdom.
