February 7, 2025
Do you sometimes have a song in your head when you wake up? This morning, I have been hearing this:
Thanks to the Internet, we can not only find words to songs, but listen to the songs as well. When I checked on the Web, I found these lyrics:
Are you tired of chasing pretty rainbows?
Are you tired of spinning round and round?
Wrap up all the shattered dreams of your life
And at the feet of Jesus lay them down.
Give them all, give them all (Give them all, give them all),
Give them all to Jesus.
Shattered dreams, wounded hearts, broken toys,
Just give them all to Jesus.
I am glad that I was able to see the words to the opening verse because I knew that I had forgotten some of them. This song by Evie and the Gaither Vocal Band was released in 2013. A lot has happened since then, but what hasn’t changed is God’s love for us.
In cleaning yesterday, I found an article entitled “Pursuing Godliness” by a man whom I haven`t seen for many years. Reflecting on what he heard at a men`s breakfast, Louis wrote: “More than ever before, men are avoiding marriage commitment. According to the 2011 Canadian census, the number of common law relationships grew over 4.5 times faster than the number of marriage commitments since 2006. This is not just in Quebec which has traditionally had a stronger rejection of church values, but is a strong and growing trend across the entire country.”
He continues: “More than ever before, men are abandoning their responsibilities. Almost 1 out of every 6 Canadian families is a single parent family, 80% of which have the mother as the single care provider. The second message men are sending to society is that when the going gets tough, men get going.” This is in contrast to the expression “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
Louis continues: “More than ever before, men are betraying their confidence. In almost every walk of life, we can think of men in positions of privilege or public service who have broken the trust placed in them by others. I think of professional athletes cheating to get ahead, politicians who steal from those they swore to serve, physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the clergy. And we would like to sit here and console ourselves by saying that this epidemic of a failure in character is limited to outside the four walls of the church, but it isn’t. Not in any significant way. As believers and followers of Christ, society has the highest expectations of Christian men because we swear allegiance to the highest standard. When men fall outside the church, they’re judged for their failures. When men fall inside the church, they’re judged for their failures and for their hypocrisy, because they’re supposed to know better.”
Lord willing, we will look further next week at the truths regarding godliness. In preparation for that, please read 1 Timothy 4. If you have been thinking about cleaning, but haven`t decided if you will start, I urge you to do so. You might find gems like the article I found. Even if you don`t find anything worth keeping, you’ll be glad to have things cleaned.
By His grace,
Steve