STAYING ON THE ARK

Just thinking this evening about being on Noah's Ark.

A replica of the Ark.

That had to be a mess.  Crowded, and the smell must have been overpowering.  I am sure the people on the ark wished they could get off, and some of them may have thought of jumping overboard.

Jumping overboard is a bad idea, no matter how much sense it seems to make while you are delirious about your circumstances.

One of the more fiendish things our enemy does is whisper to us that our present condition is forever.  This is a lie, but it is one of the hardest to combat, since by definition any difficult circumstance has already gone on too long.  The temptation to jump ship is very strong, especially when there are people around you jumping ship, and people in the water yelling that it is warm.  

Go back to your bunk and thank God you are alive.  There is no future jumping ship.  Right now the society around us is quite toxic.  Humans were not designed to live in that environment.  Church is an ark.  My advice is to keep going to Church and do your best to clean up the ark and make it livable.  But don't fool yourself into thinking the water's fine and you're a good swimmer.  The stats tell a different story, my friend.  

If you are having a hard time with church, my advice is that you draw closer to God, not jump ship and swim away. Difficulties with church are not "the problem."  They are a symptom of our problems.  Human problems are humans. Simply put, we have to do a lot of changing to be genuinely happy.  Jumping ship doesn't help with that.

The Magnificat, a wonderful little help.  

Reading God's word, prayer and fasting are good for us.  So find a good daily devotion (the Magnificat is a wonderful help) and make a point of praying and reading the Bible every day, and going to Church at least every Sunday.  

See, God likes us, but he's not lonely.  We don't pray and go to church because he's lonely.  We pray and go to church to save our lives.  It is breathing, eating, sleeping.  It is a bad and painful idea to stop, no matter how intriguing the counter-arguments are.

So stay on the Ark and do your best to clean it up and bail it out when the bilge water gets too foul. That's the price we pay for having so much life going on around us.  It is better than the alternative.