By Camilla Smith

What In The World?

By Camilla Smith

I was in Macy’s last week, a few days after the Oregon mall shooting near the Macy’s store. Needless to say, I was a little nervous, but Christmas shopping was my goal, prayer was my strength and God was my shield, so I persevered.    After being in the store 15 minutes, a woman on her cell phone stopped me and asked me if I had heard about the school shooting in Connecticut.   “Twenty children are dead”, she informed me.   The hairs stood up on my arms and that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach came over me.   We chatted for a minute about the state of the world, and I told her that all we can do is pray before we leave our homes.    A tragedy had hit our nation that would melt the coldest of hearts.    Twenty small children, their Christmas gifts probably wrapped and under the Christmas tree, were now gone.   Six adults taken in their prime, while trying to save these innocent youngsters on a day they never could have imagined.    What is happening to our country and why?

Why?    What could disturb a young person so much that he would commit the most unconscionable crime one could imagine?   Was it drugs? Was it a mental disorder?   Perhaps a broken family?   Perhaps he was bullied?   A loner?    Or is America reaping the product of the violent seeds we have sewn in the minds of our children for the past 25 years?

Remember when we were kids and our parents told us not to play with Ouija boards, because they would invite the occult?   Remember watching The Exorcist when we were teenagers and being told that we were opening ourselves to demonic entities?     I remember being terrified of both these TWO things.   Now, it is practically ALL our children have for entertainment.    Violent, evil, sinister movies and dark, sadistic video games.   Vampires, zombies, evil spirits, ghosts, witches, demons—all the norm these days.   And that is just the tip of the iceberg.    Evil is all around us.   Pornography and foul language on even the tamest of cable channels, homosexuality on any TV show you turn on.    We are inundated and it is taking us down.

If it weren’t for the promise of the soon return of Jesus, how could we go on?    But many don’t have this hope and they are falling prey to the evils that are easily seducing them and taking them down the path of eternal destruction.

Who do you blame?   I blame mostly the media and the powers that be that promote moral decay and the breakdown of the family.    I bIame music channels that promote violent music. I blame our health care system for perpetuating the addiction of so many young people to prescription drugs--drugs for pain, drugs for anxiety, drugs for depression, drugs for anything you want.    People can go to a pain clinic and leave with several hundred narcotic pain pills at a time.   It is unimaginable.    I blame my generation for feeling like we have to have everything we want, NOW.   I blame my generation for putting the kids on the back burner while we are still partying it up.   I blame every episode of The Real Housewives.    I blame our politicians.   I blame our banking system.   I blame cable news.   I blame TV channels that promote Nostradamus, aliens and the Apocalypse.   I blame every movie star that has ever acted in a violent/sexually perverted/get rich at any cost production.   I blame every U.S. citizen who could physically work for a living but chooses a government entitlement.    I blame myself, for sitting idly by and watching the nation crumble all around us.

But all this said, it is evil, pure evil incarnate that has taken our country. God has been pushed away, maybe He has stepped back, and Satan has stepped up.    Satan is taking as many as he can as fast as he can because he knows he has little time left.

We Christians are probably mostly aware that this is the case.   What do we do?   We turn to Almighty God for strength, guidance and wisdom in these last days.   We know it can’t go on much longer, and we don’t think we can bear much more.   It is exasperating, living in these times.

We must remember this verse, Nahum 1:7.   “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble and he knows those who take refuge in him”.

I feel we will be seeking more and more refuge in Him in the coming days.   Whatever time we have left before the Rapture of the Church will no doubt be filled with the precursors to the Tribulation and as we watch it unfold, we MUST focus on our Savior, our refuge.   We must focus on those around us who do not know the Gospel and make every effort to let them know they have a choice.   We must focus on our own underpinnings and strengthen our foundations of faith, so that we will be at least somewhat worthy, as worthy as any human can be, to be the bride of Christ when the time comes.     Pray for strength, pray for courage, pray for conviction and opportunity in these weeks and months ahead.    Perhaps we don’t even have that long.   Whatever our time, make the most of it, love your families and your neighbors and love the Lord Your God.   Time is of the essence!

Camilla Smith