by Don Ruhl

Watch the people around you in the world, and you will see most of them experiencing verses 10 and 12 of Psalm 107, because they are guilty of what verse 11 reveals.

10 Those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, Bound in affliction and irons -- 11 Because they rebelled against the words of God, And despised the counsel of the Most High, 12 Therefore He brought down their heart with labor; They fell down, and there was none to help. (Psalm 107:10-12, NKJV).

Do not picture these things as necessarily literal, but as matters of the soul. Their souls are in darkness, bound in affliction and irons, which brings down their hearts with heavy burdens. Therefore, they feel the darkness and shadow of death enclosing them. Why do they experience these things? Verse 11 is explicit. They have rebelled against the words of God, despising the counsel that He gives.

If we reject what the Great Counselor says, who is also the Giver of life and light; of course, we are going to be miserable. God's word is life. Therefore, without His word guiding us, we are living in death. However, you are seeking to live the words of God with all your might. Continue to do so, because these other people are watching you to see how you deal with the difficulties of life. Show compassion to them rather than disdain, remembering that we also once were living as they are, but someone showed us the grace of God and we turned to Jesus Christ.

Don Ruhl 441 Damont Street Klamath Falls, Oregon 97601-2311

Heavenly Father, with you there is no vacillation, no change, no mood swings. You are constant, unwavering, true to your purpose and promise. So this, too, is our supplication:

• Let us begin every day with prayer and the word, in your presence.

• Let us meet with the saints, without fail.

• Let us be generous and kind to every person.

• Let the salvation of others be our constant goal.

To be like you, Father, consistent in all things, is our desire and our need. We cannot be so under our own power. Make us constant in faith, good works, hope, love, and motives. For Jesus never faltered on his way to the Cross. Amen.

by J. Randal Matheny

The Postal Service of the USA issued a stamp honoring the one hundredth anniversary of the first flight by the Wright Brothers.

The first man in powered flight was from Ohio. The first man ever to orbit Earth was from Ohio. And the first man on the moon was from Ohio. It sounds like a lot of people are trying to get out of Ohio.

And a lot of people are trying to get out of other states as well. The state of despair. The state of failure. The state of ruin. The state of flat soft drinks, where nothing ever happens. The state of sin's guilt and destruction.

But fleeing these states is not done by air or space travel. Nor by drugs or alcohol or indiscriminate sex or other attempts to warp the space-time continuum. The latter are part of the problem, not the solution.

Jesus came to earth, not in flight from heaven, but on a rescue mission. To help us get out of the bad fixes we invented.

I've never been to Ohio, but it's probably a decent state. I have been to Jesus, and I can speak authoritatively about him. And though I've never been to heaven, I know Jesus is there, and that is sufficient.

For I'm fleeing a bad state of spirit and heading toward the solution.

"No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man" (John 3:13, ESV).