Scripture
The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.
~Luke 15:16, NLT
Quote
There are things that generosity will not fix: as a matter of fact, you giving could make things worse.
~Ya’akov
I was driving down 4th Avenue in Decatur last week and within a couple of hundred yards from each other, I saw two homeless couples. At least I supposed they were homeless, they had on their layers of clothes and were carrying old bags full of something. Neither couple looked to be older than 35 or so. I had my allowance money in my billfold and in the old days I would have stopped and given them some money but these are not the old days and I have learned the hard way that giving doesn’t fix a drug problem. Why would two young healthy people be homeless in Morgan County this day and age? I don’t need two guesses: I can all but promise you, they are on drugs. Why didn’t I stop and ask? Because they will lie. You don’t know how bad I wanted to help them but I drove by. The only hope for addicts is to hit rock bottom and they’ll never do that if they are getting assistance. Notice the verse above: the boy became so hungry that slop looked good to him but no one gave him anything. What if he had gotten on welfare or food stamps? He would never have gotten out of the sty, reunited with his father and successfully employed.
Listen to me folks, I speak with the heart of a father: there is no difficulty in accepting the prodigals when they return. I am more than ready to forgive and forget but prodigals don’t return until they repent. They have to have a change of mind. A certain man was checking his daughter out of a drug rehab for the third time and the clinical worker in the front office told him: “Sir, you are making a bad mistake; she is not ready. You are going by the physical and physically she has been restored but her mind is still broken, we need six more months to get her mind right.” Deep down the man feared this woman was right but he felt an intense pressure from his daughter and her family to get her back home. The man made a mistake. He listened to his heart and his daughter. Instead of being strong, he gave in and it was less than a year before he realized he had destroyed his only chance to getting his daughter back.
Let me tell you something about drug addicts. Whereas Jesus is my life, drugs are their life. They literally live for drugs. Nothing is as important to them as the drugs. Relationships take a back seat and so do responsibilities. They lie just like you and I breath. They become USERS, and not just of drugs, they use people to get more drugs and the more you give them, the more you enable them to get more drugs. Not that I have that much money, but I can tell you–MONEY WILL NOT SOLVE A DRUG PROBLEM. I have friends who are millionaires and some of them have gone through the same thing. Only Jesus can fix the problem but they have to turn to Him and trust me, they refuse to do it. There are times when we have to practice tough love and it is not easy for most of us.
Roger Burcham has had some type of stroke we think; I am going to check on them today. June got word from Cindy that Craig Tyson was a little better. We sure had a beautiful day yesterday and last night was also great. I saw the Christmas star on the way to the ball game. Honestly, I thought it was a plane. Jupiter and Saturn were in line last night and the best time to see it was right after dark. You could see it without a telescope. This created a bright star effect and you could see the streaks of light shooting in all directions. It was amazing.
I felt compelled to find out more and I discovered things I did not know. Saturn takes 29.5 years to orbit the sun and Jupiter takes 12 years. They came very close last night but they have been closer. How often do these two planets come as close as last night? Some websites say it has been nearly 400 years, while others say it’s been almost 800 years. Indeed, the last time these two planets appeared so close was on July 16, 1623, when they were only 5 arc minutes apart — that’s actually 397 years ago. There is a caveat however, for those living in temperate latitudes, such as New York, Paris or Tokyo, where the two planets were not visible because of their close proximity to the glare of the Sun and low altitude above the horizon.
This is not fact, it is conjecture. They can get closer than last night and when the two actually appear as one {has happened according to science} it would give the appearance of an exceedingly bright star with the spines of light shooting in all directions. This is probably what the wise men saw. It was a powerful sight last night with them being a degree apart. Wow, “Our God is an awesome God.”