Are you living these days with the underlying sense that something’s missing?

What’s missing?
Is it:
> the freedom to go wherever you want without virus concerns? Well, sort of.
> the luxury of getting everything you want shipped to you in 24 hours? Well, sort of.
> the ability to schedule your days, knowing your kids will physically go to school everyday? Well, sort of.
> the joy of planning big weddings and holiday celebrations? Well sort of.
What’s really missing is — stability — knowing we can count on people, things, schedules, something.
After a year and a half, we’re still not there.

So why don’t we have stability?

It’s not because of corona virus; it’s another virus that’s been raging throughout the whole human race since humanity began. We have a plague of selfishness — an insidious contagion sickening our world. Selfishness destabilizes everything.

Selfishness makes a bully puff up his own identity by picking on others.
Selfishness gives us permission to stand by and do nothing when a neighbor is wronged.
Selfishness moves us to answer disagreements with gun shots.
Selfishness makes would-be mothers and fathers kill inconveniently-timed unborn babies.
Selfishness presses politicians and media to work more on preserving power and party than defend and develop our democracy.
Selfishness cheers on a woman leaving her husband or a man abandoning his family as leaving is easier than solving problems.
Selfishness enables us to run from reality and responsibility into the fantasy worlds of video games and pornography.
Selfishness is simply, “I want to do what I want to do, regardless….”

Disregard for other people is the test tube where the virus of selfishness incubates. In many cases, we have no regard for people because we have no regard for the God who created them. And we wonder why we’re living with instability.

The plague of selfishness is not new. Unlike the novel corona virus, disregard for people and God has been around awhile. About 3,000 years ago a group of people were wandering in the Sinai Desert with a guy named Moses out in front. They had said they were loyal to follow God since He had miraculously rescued them from slavery in Egypt, but the very reason they ended up wandering in the desert was — they wanted to do what they wanted to do. God had prepared a new place for them to live, but they would have had to work for it, in fact, fight for it. Though this same God had defeated Pharaoh and the entire nation of Egypt with supernatural miracles, the people refused to trust His ability to plant them in their new land. They whined, complained and started talking about going back to Egypt. So God said (paraphrasing, mine), “Fine. You don’t have to fight for your land; go walk around the desert for the next 40 years.”

Refusing God’s will & choosing self will often lead us to dry, dusty deserts in life.

As you can imagine, wandering in a desert can make you hungry so the people grumbled. God mercifully and miraculously made flakes like bread appear each night so the people could gather them in the morning, but the bread God provided had to be gathered and eaten God’s way. The people were only supposed to pick up enough for each family member for the day. God told Moses to tell them that at the end of the day, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” God’s will was clearly stated. The people’s response? “However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell.” (Genesis 16:20) The very thing God had provided for their good, their healthy living — was rotting, decaying — because the people didn’t handle it correctly. They didn’t follow God’s instructions. They did what they wanted instead of what God told them was good for them. Does that sound familiar if you look at how a lot of us choose to live today?

That same thinking, “I want to do what I want to do” with no regard for other people or God, is causing rottenness and decay in our lives today — so we are sorely missing stability. Instead we have our modern version of rot and decay. Bullying. Indifference. Baby killing. Shootings. Divisive politics. Family abandonment. Addiction to video gaming and pornography.

We want to do what we want to do so we live amongst rot and decay with everything feeling unstable.

However, there is a way to stop the smell of decay and start to restore stability. Here’s the secret to living a life that is the opposite of everything falling apart. In Him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:17) “Him” is Jesus, God. He died on the cross and rose from the dead to prove His power over death and decay. He has the power to sustain and prevent breakdown and He gives His Spirit to all who follow Him so that WE, too, have the strength to make choices that build up and sustain, not break down. If we disregard Jesus then we reject His power — the power that can hold things together in our lives, our minds, our marriages, our families, our friendships, our schools, our government, our nation. There is no middle ground; we either accept Jesus and His ways or we are rejecting Him — the “Him” of whom it’s written, “In Him all things hold together.” Apart from Him, we can do nothing worthwhile. There aren’t enough self-help books or productivity podcasts on the planet to stabilize the spiral of decay that human selfishness has set in motion, but in Him all things hold together.

Want stability?

Get “in Him.” He stands with open arms. Tell Him you want to surrender your self will and embrace His good, perfect and pleasing will for your life. What’s missing? Many will say the old life before the corona virus. What’s really missing is a new life, surrendered to Jesus who has the power to bring better stability than we can ever know apart from Him. If you’ve never invited Jesus and His stabilizing power into your life, here is your invitation. If you need to renew your commitment to His will over your will, here’s your invitation. Jesus is standing, knocking, waiting for you to open the door to Him and His stabilizing power. You don’t have to live with the “something’s missing” feeling any longer. Jesus says,

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in…” (Revelation 3:20)