A Healthy Meal

Hebrews 10:19-25

Eric A. Snyder, Minister, Farwell Church of Christ

February 10, 2002

A burglar, needing money to pay his income taxes, decided to rob the safe in a store. On the safe door he was very pleased to find a note reading: "Please don’t use dynamite. The safe is not locked. Just turn the knob."

He did so. Instantly a heavy sandbag fell on him, the entire premises were floodlighted, and alarms started clanging. As the police carried him out on a stretcher, he was heard moaning: "My confidence in human nature has been rudely shaken."

I know that there are times when your confidence in God is shaken.

In a time when every thing seems so uncertain and scary, perhaps you’ve been left wondering; where is God?

In a certain suburban neighborhood, there were two brothers, 8 and 10 years old, who were exceedingly mischievous. Whatever went wrong in the neighborhood, it turned out they had had a hand in it. Their parents were at their wits’ end trying to control them. Hearing about a priest nearby who worked with delinquent boys, the mother suggested to the father that they ask the priest to talk with the boys. The father replied, "Sure, do that before I kill them!"

The mother went to the priest and made her request. He agreed, but said he wanted to see the younger boy first and alone. So the mother sent him to the priest.

The priest sat the boy down across a huge, impressive desk he sat behind. For about five minutes they just sat and stared at each other. Finally, the priest pointed his forefinger at the boy and asked, "Where is God?"

The boy looked under the desk, in the corners of the room, all around, but said nothing.

Again, louder, the priest pointed at the boy and asked, "Where is God?"

Again the boy looked all around but said nothing. A third time, in a louder, firmer voice, the priest leaned far across the desk and put his forefinger almost to the boy’s nose, and asked, "Where is God?"

The boy panicked and ran all the way home. Finding his older brother, he dragged him upstairs to their room and into the closet, where they usually plotted their mischief. He finally said, "We are in BIIIIG trouble."

The older boy asked, "What do you mean, BIIIIG trouble?"

His brother replied, "God is missing and they think we did it."

I don’t know if that described your life, but I know that there have been times in my past when I couldn’t find God. The reason that I couldn’t find him was not because he wasn’t there. It was because at the time I was unstable.

We live in a world that is changing every second. In fact the word that most people would use to define their lives in today’s society is. Shaky, or unstable.

If you follow the news you will find out that what we deal with everyday is at least a little shaky. Currently even thought Mr. Greenspan says that the recession is over our economy continues to show signs of instability. The house market right now looks uncertain. Last week the Rams offense even managed to look poor. We now live in a time of live in relationships because people honestly can’t make a decision about who they want to spend their life with. Divorce rates are at an all time high. Even in the past year our sense of security has been taken from us.

So what do you do through out all of the instability, Well we are told in God’s written word that He is trustworthy. He can be trusted, He is unchanging,

I would contend that at any point in your life there are things that are really unstable. In the past 6 months some of you have been laid off, lost your health, lost a loved one and the list goes on. So you know that God is your only source of stability. It’s that way for everybody.

Have you found yourself sitting back thinking that your life is pretty great? One of the things that amazes me most about life is how strong it is and how fragile it is. We all live unstable lives, The job could be gone tomorrow, The kids might have some heartbreaking news in a week, we never know what is around the corner, But we do know this. Through all of our instability we know that the Lord is our rock.

He in unbending, and the great news about serving merciful God is that He promises to care for us

A father and son were out in the country, climbing around in some cliffs, The father heard a voice from above me yell, "Hey Dad! Catch me!" He turned around to see his son jumping off a rock straight at him. He had jumped and then yelled "Hey Dad!" The father caught his son. And they both fell to the ground. For a moment after neither could hardly talk. When the dad found his voice again he gasped in exasperation: "Can you give me one good reason why you did that???"