Sometimes things in life seem to almost crush our souls, and we struggle to make sense of “Why” things turned out like they did. Often, there is no easy answer.

Today, Lazarus Jensen came into the world, but could not live outside of his mother’s womb. He passed shortly after coming into the world.

Lazarus was born with such a beautiful face it was hard to comprehend how this beautiful child could not survive. His little body was to frail and underdeveloped so he could not breathe on his own.

As I got up this morning, I opened my phone to see a text from Josh saying they had gone to the hospital around 2am and now they were holding Lazarus, but he was passing soon. The text this morning broke my heart. Not only did they lose a son, but Sue and I were losing a new grandson. When people you love are suffering you just want to hold them and make the pain go away, but the most you can hope for is to bring comfort in the midst of their suffering.

Growing up in grammar school, grades 5-8th, I had a favorite book I would always check out of the library which was, “Air War Over Hitlers Germany”. It had tons of picture of B-17 bombers fighting during WWII. My reading skills were pretty poor back then, but I could look at those pictures all day long and dream of being a pilot or door-way gunner fighting against the evil of Hitler and the Nazi’s.

Even growing up in a non-religious family, I knew you have to confront evil or evil will overtake all that is good. At every school I attended before high school, which were five, there would be one bully that would terrorize all the other boys. One particular bully ruled for two years at one school, until we all graduated to high school. He would always pick a fight with a guy smaller than himself to prove he was the toughest. This time, now in high school, he picked a fight with a kid that was trained in boxing and the smaller kid cleaned his clock! The bully lost his reputation and transferred to another school because of shame and embarrassment.

I did a google search on people sticking their head in the sand, relating to ignoring facts in life, and came up with some interesting facts that I wasn’t aware of.

The idea of a person sticking their head in the sand has to do with that person ignoring obvious facts or refusing to accept advice, hoping that simply denying the existence of a problem will make it go away.

Sometimes we bite off more than we can chew, or we start some project and in the middle of it we wish we didn’t. I think God designed life with this in mind.

If we always knew the price we would pay starting something, we might not attempt it. Think of all the times you’ve said to yourself, “Why did I think I could do this”? The fact you didn’t realize the whole picture caused to you try something you might never have done before. Sometime ignorance is helpful to get us “unstuck” from where we are.

When we open our eyes to the beauty of the earth around us, we can start to get a glimpse of the possibility of our own potential.

To many times people and circumstances loudly yell at us that we are so flawed that the best we can hope for is hanging on to life to get the best we can from the ride of life rather than developing our potential. Parents, friends, teachers and strangers may not have noticed our potential, yet God has deposited so much raw potential for us and others to develop. Satan wants us to believe we will never amount to much. Unfortunately many have been drinking from his lies instead of drinking from the waters of life in Christ.

John 4:10 (NLTSE)Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”

When we were kids, most of us played the game of hide and seek. Sue and I use to play it with our grandkids when they were under one year old but putting our hands over our face and then pulling them away saying “Boo”! The kids would laugh their heads off. When we all became older as kids we played a more complicated version of hide and seek with our friends were we had to find the person or persons that were hiding behind trees or bushes.

The game was fun when we could discover the person hiding quickly, but if it took to long we all got discouraged and wanted to quit the game.

Many churches are encouraging their people to consider prayer and fasting in the month of January. They are trying to start out the year with greater understanding and insight as to the mind and heart of God rather than living life as “doing business as usual” mentality. A high and lofty goal, combining fasting and prayer use to be part of the fabric of the Christian culture through the centuries, but since the 1900 many Christians have lost the idea, let alone the practice. Since the 1970s a Holy Spirit stirring has being happening where believers have seen that they have embraced their freedom in Christ and often abandoned many of the disciplines Christ taught, one being fasting.

The question that needs to be addressed is “Why & How” should we fast, not if.

Philippians 1:6 says, “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Try as he might, my son couldn’t force enough air from his full lung capacity to blow up the little red balloon he was trying to inflate. Dizzy from the strain, he collapsed into a chair in frustration, just as his father walked by and held out his hand. He took the balloon and started to work.

After four or five stretches of the latex material, he pressed the opening to his lips and gave it several strong blows, then cinched it between two fingers and handed the partially filled balloon back. Our son looked confused.”

“You’re not going to finish it? I’ve already tried and can’t do it.”

“You can now because I got it started. You can take care of the rest.”

How can you become a more effective leader? By building a strong spiritual foundation from the ground up! Writing as a friend and mentor, MacDonald draws from biblical truth and life experience to help you grow in all areas of leadership, including cultivating spiritual formation, encouraging restoration and renewal, and dealing with difficult people.

Just like Superman, who can leap over any hurdle and defeat every foe, followers of Christ have the supernatural ability to conquer the challenges we face. But the problem for both Superman and us is there’s a kryptonite that steals our strength.

Of course, both Superman and kryptonite are fictional. But spiritual kryptonite is not. This study offers answers to why so many of us are unable to experience the divine strength that was evident among first-century Christians.