FAITH

Pratt: Good times, hard times and sometimes in-between times

Beth Pratt
Special to the Avalanche-Journal

A stillness is in the air this week. Night temperatures range cooler, befitting the  approaching winter season.

Pratt

The largest tree on the place waves gently to me via a light breeze, saying “see me survive and thrive the worst that winter threw at me last year.”

It lost a couple of major branches and many smaller ones as did our other trees. A spring and summer of timely rains have brought healing and new life in what made us wonder a year ago if any plant would survive October's deadly, early deep freeze.

Later, winter brought the longer seasonal freeze that caused the largest monetary loss ever experienced in the 70 plus years of our rural electric cooperative. It was even worse in heavily populated South Texas.

Add to that the political posturing by a newly elected president who sold out the country's liquid gold (oil and natural gas) to a world thirsty for the economic and political power of energy.

Done under the guise of “rescue” from climate change, it promises a rough ride that threatens to destroy energy as the economic base of our economy.

The cyclic nature of the weather in West Texas somewhat mirrors our political history — good times, hard times and sometimes in-between times. That's a lot times. So what is new?

Chances are, if you are a regular reader of this column, you can identify with these observations from personal experience, whatever your business or life work history.

A quote of Elbert Hubbard from the May 1960, Reader's Digest rings true. Written at a time when professorial proponents of Marxism were multiplying in our universities and talking to our youth more about America's failures than its amazing successes, Hubbard says: “God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars.”

What a prescient preview of what was to come, as Americans seem to care less and less about what God says, instead embracing a philosophy of materialism. Wealthier youth of that period often swallowed the socialist, atheist mantra.

Floating on chemical clouds of alcoholism and other drug “insights,” they offered themselves up to a godless materialism, growing a garden of delusion that is manifesting in full bloom today.

In some of our churches, materialism grew quietly at first, such as with this “prayer” attitude:

“Almighty God forgive me for my agnosticism; For I shall try to keep it gentle, not cynical, nor a bad influence.

“And O! If Thou art truly in the heavens, accept my gratitude for all Thy gifts and I shall try to fight the good fight. Amen.” (John Gunther, Jr. “Unbeliever's Prayer.” from Multnomah Books “Book of Wisdom,” 1997.)

One of the great preachers on America's racial issues, Martin Luther King Jr., said of the need to right many wrongs still evident: “I've decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

Living in troubled times, King recognized God's love as the only possible answer to real change in the hearts of people, whatever their color, ethnicity or experience.

The sins of today may dress differently, but in essence the rebellion is intent on replacing godliness with godlessness.

The climate within our ability to change comes by faith and obedience to our Creator God, who gives us life and opportunity to love one another in all circumstances.

Like tree limbs breaking under whatever ice weights us down, we can sustain only so many seasons before experiencing judgment in our disobedience to God's command. History is clear about what happens when God is mocked. Study it well.

Beth Pratt retired after 25 years as the religion editor for the Avalanche-Journal.