do what you can…

the right response to difficulty is to confront it.  do what you can. 

this is what paul did here in acts 27.33 & 34 (msg), with dawn about to break, paul called everyone together and proposed breakfast: “this is the fourteenth day we’ve gone without food. none of us has felt like eating! but i urge you to eat something now. you’ll need strength for the rescue ahead. you’re going to come out of this without even a scratch!”

when you get under stress, tension, in a crisis, when you’re overwhelmed by problems and think you’re going to crack up, you stop taking care of yourself.  you don’t eat right, sleep right, those physical management things you need to do.  paul says, when you’re overwhelmed with stress remember the simple stuff like eating right. 

they had been worried sick for 14 days and hadn’t eaten anything.  then he told them to do some other stuff:  they lightened the ship, they untied the rudders, cut the anchors loose, intentionally ran the ship straight ahead into the storm trying to run aground. 

that is how you get through a storm.  you don’t run from it.  you can’t go under it, over it, around it.  you go right into it.  GOD won’t take you around the storm.  HE will take you through the storm of life.  the only way to face a storm is head on.  if you turn sideways, you’re going to capsize.  GOD says “face the storm, don’t fear it. go straight on into it.” 

you never solve a problem by ignoring it.  GOD didn’t say when you go through the storm it would be easy.  HE said, “I will be with you.”  GOD didn’t say it will be easy getting through what you’re going through right now.  but HE did say, “I will be with you.”  and you are going to make it.

just a thought from the front porch…