It's no secret that the righteous sometimes envy the wicked. After all, pagans don't have to stay humble, glorify God, or keep their mouth shut. They get to do what they please, say what they want, and sin to their hearts content. They have less stress, more fun, and a promising future.

On second thought, no they don't. 
It's hard to see in the dark.
Even God is tough to find when night falls.

But as thick as the clouds may be, and as long as the season lasts, the Good Shepherd is still with us as promised.
Question: How much oppression can a Christian endure before God comes to the rescue? 
Answer: All of it.

The thread we feel like we're hanging from isn't always as thin as it seems.
Falling in love is a powerful thing, or so they say.
But when it comes to God, some people don't seem to love Him very much at all.

Is there any way to know for sure if we really love Jesus like we say we do?
Some lessons are harder learned than others.
But few of them smart as much as a course in graduate-level humility.

Ask anyone who's ever taken the credit, and they'll admit: Learning to be humble is almost enough to kill you.
By this time tomorrow there'll be 100,000 new songs for you to listen to on Sound Cloud, Spotify, and Apple,
but none of them will be worth remembering like this one is.

Try not to forget it…
Sadness, sorrow, war, and wreckage...a land filled with dead bodies & blood puddles...
It's impossible to forget the horrors of a holocaust.

But at least they give us something to sing about. Even if it's only a ‘dirge.’
God's people are like sheep. Sometimes they get stuck.
Sometimes they get stuck.

Sometimes they get stuck.
Some people love and trust the Lord, while others hate Him.
Some hunger and thirst for righteousness. Other people simply don't.

It's easy to tell which ones are which, depending on who it is that keeps their mouth shut.
Power can go to a persons' head real quick...especially when they're related to Lucifer.
Even more so after they've been told that they're like God, and they can choose whether people live or die.

Yes indeed, authority like that can have quite the effect on some people. 
What if there was a weapon that could kill more people at once than the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima?

Well, there is.
And every Christian has it. 
Homelessness is an awful feeling.
Like foxes without dens or birds without nests, Christians without a church are feeble & faint.

It's in their very nature to do what they must to come back home again.
Even after the circumstantial hardship has run its course, 
a child of God can be left feeling like they're still inching toward death.

That's when you know it's time for revival.
What does a prayer warrior look like? Well, first of all, they're poor & needy. Next to that they're weak & weary. 
Real prayer warriors are desperate, and sinful, and oftentimes discouraged.

It's not the eloquence of the prayer or the strength of the one offering it that makes the difference. But rather, it's the One who hears us. 
Of all babies born world-wide this year, there is a .018% chance that it'll happen in Zion.

The numbers are probably different for the adults, however, but we're not sure yet.
You'd have to check their birth-certificate. 
The darkest hour. Everybody has one by the time they die.
It's when your friends are gone, God is distant, and there's no more hope in life than there is in death.
And what makes it so terrible is that it feels like the misery might go on forever.
This is depression at its finest.

God's children are no strangers to discipline. Nor are we unfamiliar with the tears it produces.
That's why it would help us tremendously, to start seeing pain for what it really is.