It was Charles Dickens that wrote of it being "the best of times and the worst of times."  Insight like this really isn't rare as much as it is seldom stated so clearly.  We just have that very human tendency to focus on one reality or the other.  Would you believe there are people who discount the positive in their world in order to focus like a laser on the negative?  There are also those who ignore anything remotely unhappy in order to keep a smile going.  Life is never totally one or the other.  Human existance will always find us balancing conditions at either end of the spectrum.  Being healthy calls for more than a better attitude or efforts to remake the moment into one of our choosing.  God never says life will be easy.  But it is also true that God says it must be so hard we lose our grip.  How we manage the middle determines how we will do.

Being real means not overstating the negative nor underestimating the positive.  God remains still far beyond the situations of our times.  That is something to realize even when it causes problems along the way.  I am thinking of the person who may say that God is firmly entrenched with all power but cannot find a way to connect to Him.  My view is far too many church people sing of a God who is all powerful but is not related to daily events.  Our faith becomes more about what we believe rather than having God's living presence become valid.  Quotations of bible verses replaces the living capacity of the truth to transform us.  Nothing changes in our world when nothing changes in us.  We become like the popular monsters of our day. 

Zombies are replacing the traditional scary creatures in our media culture.  They are simply to be those who died yet are still moving about even if it is very slow.  I don't get zombies myself.  Surely even my slow body can outrun a shuffling partially dead thing.  But my original point is these new characters are not truly alive yet neither are they dead.  They stumble along trying to rob the living of their being.  We will be confronted with the temptation to live in a similar manner.  All of our trouble will accumulate until we cannot see past our pain.  God's purpose is lost within us just from feeling so bad.  Keeping up habits of spiritual growth will become unimportant in comparison to trying to feel better.  It does not take long for us to be so isolated or insulated from God that we become wanderers rather than biblical followers. 

Those negative emotions are contagious.  Far too many congregations suffer from years of experiencing abuse or damage even when it is self inflicted.  They sing songs but have no spirit.  They hear sermons with no intent to apply.  They meet in gatherings to talk about minute details of the organization with no idea of its spiritual loss.  They can simply be referred to as walking dead.  A miracle is required to bring new life to its being.  When the pain of staying where you are is greater than the pain of going with God then you are ready for such a miracle.  But are you there yet?  What more will it take for you to wake up? 

Bro. Trey