Power of God

Anxiety has become an unwelcome companion for many, creeping into everyday life with relentless persistence.

The most striking revelation is the pervasive nature of worry among younger Americans. An overwhelming 62% of Gen Z and millennial respondents report feeling constantly anxious, compared to 38% of older generations. On average, people spend two hours and 18 minutes each day caught in the grip of worrisome thoughts. This is a significant chunk of time that could otherwise fuel productivity, creativity, or personal growth.

The timing of these worry periods reveals interesting patterns. A third of respondents find themselves most anxious when alone. 30% are plagued by worries as they prepare to fall asleep. Another 17% are tormented by anxious thoughts upon waking. 12% experience peak worry while getting ready for bed.

When it comes to specific concerns:

53% of respondents cite money as their primary source of anxiety.
42% worry about their loved ones.
42% fret about pending tasks and to-do lists.
37% have health concerns
22% have sleep anxiety (22%),
19% are concerned by political uncertainties

For parents, the concerns extend far beyond personal anxieties. 77% express profound worry about the world their children are inheriting, with 34% specifically calling out climate change as a significant concern.

One parent’s raw emotion captures this generational anxiety: “Honestly, I worry that there won’t be a world for my child to grow up in.”

Possible Preaching Angle:
How many minutes a day do you spend worrying? Instead, turn your anxieties over to the Lord and pray as David did “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts…and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psa. 139:23). Jesus knows your tendency to worry and he said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life… your heavenly Father knows what you need.” (Matt. 6:25-34)

Rodney Holbrook no longer has to clean up his shed—he has a mouse to do that. Holbrook, a wildlife photographer and retired mailman, noticed that things were moving around in his Builth Wells, Wales, shed overnight. He set up a night vision camera and discovered that a mouse was picking up nuts, bolts, corks, and other items and putting them back into their box.

Holbrook dubbed the tiny housekeeper "Welsh Tidy Mouse," and said that "99 times out of 100," the mouse cleans up during the night. Holbrook said the mouse seems to have fun moving the objects. He doesn't even "bother to tidy up now, I leave things out of the box and they put it back in its place by the morning.”

Watch the adorable 1-minute video here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Throughout the Bible, God uses a variety of animals to help his people in significant ways. The Scripture references are just a few examples of the many ways God used animals to help, guide, and protect those he cares for. Each story offers unique insights into God's character and relationship with his creation.

“Life will not be contained, life breaks free, it expands to new territories, it crashes into barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously,” said Jeff Goldblum, playing the role of chaos theory mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm in the iconic 1993 film Jurassic Park. “I’m simply saying that, well, life finds a way.”

That line was part of a fictional exchange, but it might have just as easily been uttered by real life scientists, baffled by a recent discovery at a storefront aquarium in North Carolina.

Charlotte the stingray lives at the Aquarium and Shark Lab in Henderson, North Carolina. She’s more than two thousand miles away from her natural habitat, off the coast of southern California. And it’s been more than eight years since she shared a tank with a male of her species, instead sharing a tank with five small sharks. But somehow, Charlotte has become pregnant.

Marine biologists call the process parthenogenesis, where a mammal can reproduce offspring from unfertilized eggs. It’s a rare phenomenon, but similar behaviors have been observed in other animals like California condors, Komodo dragons, and yellow-bellied water snakes. According to Katy Lyons, a research scientist at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, Charlotte’s pregnancy is the first occurrence of her species, the round stingray.

“I’m not surprised,” said Lyons. “Because nature finds a way of having this happen.”

Editor’s Note: Unsurprisingly, the casual temptation for a skeptic may be to suggest that, even if there were a Jesus of Nazareth born of a virgin, it could have been through a parthenogenetic process. But given that parthenogenesis results in a near clone of the parent—and hence, all offspring are female—no one can suggest that a virgin conception of Christ could have been anything but miraculous. For further information, follow this link to Answers in Genesis.

Possible Preaching Angle:

God is sovereign and will not be constrained by any earthly obstacles, whether from biology or technology. Miracles do happen and they testify to God’s power. If we continue to submit our lives to God’s will, we might very well witness an unexpected blessing.

Thomas Torrance likes to repeat a simple story of what he calls “the unconditional nature of grace.” He writes, “Our grasping of Christ by faith is itself enclosed within the mighty grasp of Christ.” Then he shares this story and quote:

I sometimes recall what happened when my daughter was learning to walk. I took her by the hand to help her, and I can still feel her fingers clutching my hand. She was not relying on her feeble grasp of my hand, but on my strong grasp of her hand.

Is that not how we are to understand the faith by which we lay hold of Christ as our Savior? It is thus that our grasp of faith, feeble though it is, is grasped and enfolded in the mighty grasp of Christ who identifies himself with us, and puts himself in our place.

In his book, Beautiful People Don’t Just Happen, Pastor Scott Sauls writes:

During rehearsal, I always warn bridesmaids to keep their knees slightly bent while standing during the ceremony. The combination of high heels and locked knees limits oxygen flow to the brain, which dramatically increases the possibility of fainting. Over the years, five bridesmaids have forgotten my instructions and fainted.

Thankfully, I did not need to be the first responder in any of these fainting incidents. Each time, medical professionals have left their seats and rush toward the fallen bridesmaid to tend to her. Each time, they successfully resuscitated her, enabling us to finish the ceremony with the bridesmaid restored to her honored place, but now with her knees dutifully and carefully bent. At the end of the ceremony, when the last hymn is played and the bride and groom walk the aisle together, the bridesmaid sings. No longer falling on the ground, she is also able to join the bride, groom, and guests for the dancing and feasting.

God’s response to our sin is not unlike that of a medical professional to a fallen bridesmaid. Not only is it within his ability to awaken and restore us to our honored place, not only is it within his ability to put a new song in our mouths, it is also within his very nature to do so. With resolve, he gets out of his seat and tends to us on the ground where we have fallen. He breathes life into us as he tends to us in our weakest, most humiliating, and most vulnerable places. He lifts us up off the ground and invites us to sing of his love, and take our honored seat at the marriage feast.

Psalm 46 says, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” A particular scene from Fury, a movie set mostly inside a World War Two-era tank of the same name, brings this beautiful promise home.

In the waning days of the war as American soldiers flood into Germany, we’re transported to a field where a group of GIs are exposed and pinned down by German fire, helpless to do anything but wait. They are definitely in trouble.

Suddenly, “Fury” and a pair of other tanks break through and advance, guns thundering away at the German positions. Do the GIs rise and charge ahead, side-by-side with the tanks? No! They simply roll to where the tanks are, slide in behind them and move ahead, letting the tanks do all the work, letting the tanks do what they were designed to do.

It is the same with God. Notice the psalmist says that God, and he alone, is our refuge, our strength. Not God plus our abilities or God plus our strength or wits or might. Just God. Sometimes, it’s best to simply slide in behind him in obedience and let him do what only he can do.

Dr. Eric McLaughlin is a missionary doctor in Burundi, one of the poorest nations on the planet. After years of watching one out of seven of his patients die, it is hard for him to hold onto hope. He tells the story of Odette, a young woman who was hospitalized with terrible kidney failure. Odette’s family pooled their money to send her to a kidney specialist in the city. Long-term dialysis was not an option, so Dr. McLaughlin wondered if the expense of such a trip would change anything for her.

Dr. McLaughlin writes, “I fear to hope sometimes. My recent weeks had been filled with tragedies like Odette’s. More than that, there had been several times when it seemed like someone was going to recover but then suddenly died. ‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick,’ says Proverbs 13:12. Exactly; my heart was sick.”

Amid his lament and doubt, his phone chimed. Dr. McLaughlin saw that the messages were from a friend named Onesphore, a former student and coworker. Now he works at a hospital in the city.

“Good morning doctor. I wanted to let you know that we have been caring for Odette. We have not been able to do much. But some fluids and careful observation have resulted in her kidneys returning almost to normal! We’re sending her home today. I just thought you would want to know. Praise God!”

Not only was Odette healed, but I heard the news from someone I had helped train for his current job. The good news arrived precisely when I was sitting there thinking about how afraid I was to hope. The idea that God was present was no longer theoretical; it was real and sudden. In a moment, the revealing of this whole story filled me with tearful joy, not a small amount of fear, and a renewed hope.

It was the height of summer in the UK and then the sky darkened. On the evening of July 21, 2021, hailstones the size of golf balls fell from the sky, smashing windows and battering cars.

While the hailstorm was unusual in its severity, it was mild compared to a hailstorm that struck Calgary in Canada in June 2020. Hailstones the size of tennis balls caused damage to at least 70,000 homes and vehicles, destroyed crops and left the area facing a $940 million repair bill.

And climate change is altering the pattern of hailstorms. In the last three years in Texas, Colorado, and Alabama, the records for largest hailstone have been broken, reaching sizes of up to 6.2 inches in diameter. Hail damage in the US now averages more than $10 billion a year.

Hail forms as droplets of water are carried upward into a thunderstorm. Updraughts carry them into parts of the atmosphere where the air is cold enough to freeze the droplets. Moisture from the air accumulates on the outside of the drops of ice as it moves through the air, causing the hailstone to grow in onion-like layers.

Hailstones of less than 1 inch diameter typically fall at 25-49 mph. But downbursts can feature vertical windspeeds of 156-179 mph with correspondingly destructive hail. The heaviest hailstone ever recorded fell in Bangladesh in 1986, weighed 2.25 lbs. The hailstorm killed as many as 92 people and injured 400.

But just how big can a hailstone get? Experts now estimate the largest possible hailstone at 10.6 inches across or "bowling ball sized.” Meteorologist Matthew Kumjian of Pennsylvania State University said, “Strong 'supercell' thunderstorms produce the world's largest hailstones. So, the strongest of these storms today is probably capable of producing a supergiant stone.” It's clear that the really big stuff is likely to still keep hurling down at us. All we can do is prepare, and find a decent shelter.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Throughout Scripture God has used hailstones as a form of judgment upon his enemies. This will be particularly true in the end times when hailstones weighing 100 pounds each will bring devastating judgment to the earth. “And men cursed God for the plague of hail, because it was so horrendous” (Rev. 16:21).

Once, when a little girl asked Albert Einstein if scientists pray, Einstein replied in part, “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifested in the laws of the universe—a spirit vastly superior to that a man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”

Then in an interview before his 50th birthday, Einstein was asked if he believed in God. Einstein said,

I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must’ve written those books. He does not know how. He does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.

A tourist named Ivan was swimming in the ocean at Myti Beach in Greece when he was carried away by a series of powerful currents. Friends alerted the nearby coast guard, but they couldn’t find him, and he along with a friend were eventually declared to be lost at sea.

But 18 hours later, rescuers pulled Ivan out of the ocean, cold and shaken, but alive. That’s because shortly after his ocean ordeal began, he found an unexpected floatation device--a children’s ball. Just like Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away, Ivan found himself clinging onto the ball for survival, except rather than a volleyball, it was a child-sized soccer ball.

Ivan’s recovery was covered extensively in Greek national media, and several newspapers carried the photo where he posed with his grateful father, the mayor of Kassandra, and the fateful ball. The ball in the photo caught the attention of a mom who recognized it as the toy her son lost at the beach 10 days prior. Not only had the sea currents pulled the ball over 80 miles before he was able to grab onto it, but Ivan testified that the ball was only half-inflated. In Ivan’s home region of north Macedonia, people are rightfully calling it a miracle.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Word of God - When our lives are at stake, we must hold on to God's Word, for in it is life and salvation; 2) Rescue - God can use the most unlikely things to rescue his people. He has used: A whale (Jonah 1:17), a raven (1 Kings 17:6), the jawbone of a donkey (Judges 15:15), and a handful of flour (1 Kings 17:12).

In the days of the Russian revolution, the Soviet state tried to stamp out Christianity and convert everyone to atheism. A popular Russian comedian developed a stage act in which he played a drunken Orthodox priest. Dressed in wine-stained robes, he did a comic imitation of the ancient but beautiful liturgy.

Part of his performance was to chant the Beatitudes. But he used distorted words—such as “blessed are they who hunger and thirst for vodka” and “blessed are the cheese makers”—while struggling to remain more or less upright. He had done his act time and again and been rewarded by the authorities for his work in promoting atheism and in making worship seem ridiculous.

But on one occasion things didn’t go as planned. Instead of saying his garbled version of the Beatitudes in his well-rehearsed comic manner, he chanted the sentences as they are actually sung in a real Liturgy. His attention was focused not on the audience but on the life-giving words that were coming from the Bible, words he had learned and sung as a child. He listened to the memorized words and something happened in the depths of his soul.

After singing the final Beatitude, he fell to his knees weeping. He had to be led from the stage and never again parodied worship. Probably he was sent to a labor camp, but even so it’s a story of a happy moment in his life. He had begun a new life in a condition of spiritual freedom that no prison can take away. Whatever his fate, he brought the Beatitudes and his recovered faith with him. Truly, the Bible can change one’s life.

Professor Craig Keener shares the following story in an issue of CT magazine:

Around 1960, in the Republic of Congo, a two-year-old girl named Thérèse was bitten by a snake. She cried out for help, but by the time her mother, Antoinette, reached her, Thérèse was unresponsive and seemed to have stopped breathing. No medical help was available to them in their village, so Antoinette strapped little Thérèse to her back and ran to a neighboring village.

According to the US National Library of Medicine, brain cells start dying less than five minutes after their oxygen supply is removed. After six minutes, lack of oxygen can cause severe brain damage or death. Antoinette estimates that, given the distance and the terrain, it probably took about three hours to reach the next village. By the time they arrived, her daughter was likely either dead or had sustained significant brain damage.

Antoinette immediately sought out a family friend, Coco Ngoma Moyise, who was an evangelist in the neighboring village. They prayed over the lifeless girl and immediately she started breathing again. By the next day, she was fine—no long-term harm and no brain damage. Today, Thérèse has a master’s degree and is a pastor in Congo.

Craig writes, “When I heard this story, as a Westerner I was naturally tempted toward skepticism, but it was hard to deny. Thérèse is my sister-in-law and Antoinette was my mother-in-law.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Not every claim to a miraculous raising today is authentic. Everywhere in the world, most people who die stay dead. Even those resuscitated miraculously, such as Lazarus, die again; all healing in our mortal bodies is by definition temporary. Such miracles do, however, remind us that Jesus Christ, who raised the dead during his earthly ministry, is the risen and exalted Lord. Sometimes he continues to grant signs of the future, reminders of the resurrection hope that in him awaits us all.

Sam Allberry writes in an article for the Gospel Coalition:

A friend of mine has a little motto thing on the wall of her office, one of these little sayings that someone has printed out prettily and put a frame around. And it says this: “Those who hear not the music, think the dancer is mad.”

It’s true. If you watch a music video and you take away the volume, it looks ridiculous. There’s a lot of strutting. A lot of pouting. You put the sound back on and it does begin to make a bit of sense.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus is our music, but it is unheard by the world. The world sees our worship, our service, our sanctified lives, our joy, but to them our behavior is “mad.”

Pastor and author Craig Brian Larson writes:

In January, 2021, as the coronavirus continued to spread, we received concerning news from a family in our church. Jose Alvarado, his wife, Sayra, their son Antonio, and his mother Martha had all caught the virus.

While other family members were largely over it, Jose continued to get worse and he was admitted to the hospital. His symptoms included a fever over 104, uncontrollable coughing, and developing pneumonia. The oxygen level in his blood was dropping quickly, and doctors moved Jose to the intensive care unit the next day.

After a couple of days in ICU, his fever finally broke, but the fluid in his lungs persisted, along with coughing and weakness. Jose continued to fight and do various exercises, and this led to continued improvement over time. After 10 days in ICU, around 3 a.m., Jose saw four angels standing around his bed, two on a side. It was dream-like. He did not see their faces. He had been lying on his chest to drain the liquid from his lungs, but the angels helped him turn over to his back to breathe more easily, and he instantly felt healing.

The angels left, and the nurse came around 5 a.m. to draw blood for daily tests. Jose asked her what happened overnight, why there were so many people in the room. She said no one had been in the room until she came in, and even so only one person is allowed at a time due to COVID protocols. (Hospital rules do not apply to angels!)

After breakfast, the nurse told Jose they were moving him out of ICU to a regular room, since he was doing better. A few days later, the doctor surveyed Jose’s test results and oxygen reading and said, “You’re going home today.” That afternoon he was home with his family eating a delicious meal. Although Jose continued to useoxygen for a few days as he recovered at home, the turnaround in his symptoms was dramatic once the angels intervened.

Most rescue dogs are claimed from pet shelters, but Richard Wilbanks rescued his puppy from the jaws of an alligator. Wilbanks was out on a walk with Gunner when he heard a brief yelp of distress. Wilbanks recalled, “I looked around and saw the alligator out swimming in the pond with him. I just wasn't going to let him have my puppy for breakfast.”

Surveillance footage from the Florida Wildlife Federation showed Wilbanks in action as he ran into the pond to get his dog back, prying the jaws of the gator loose. In honor of the bravery displayed by his owner, Gunner was selected to take part in an educational initiative called Deputy Dogs, Pets on Patrol. According to a program representative, Carmine Dellaquilla, Gunnar will assist in helping children throughout Lee County avoid danger. She said, “School bus safety, safety as it relates to the water. Alligators in the pond, toads, cane toads. Any types of danger that children face every day.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The God who watches over all creation has his watchful eye on you and will not let you be devoured by evildoers. Young David said, “The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Sam. 17:37).

In his book, The Art of Prayer, Timothy Jones tells the story of his friend, Jeanie Hunter:

In … 1983, surgery to have a tumor removed from my ear, left a facial nerve severely damaged, causing paralysis and weakness on the left side of my face. My hearing was so affected that I had to wear a hearing aid. The nerve controlling taste was cut so that food tasted like wet cardboard. And my middle ear was injured, leaving a constant ringing. On top of all this, I was so dizzy I had to spend most of the day in bed or lying on the couch.

(In) 1987, someone from my church called and asked if I was going to attend the Wednesday morning service. ... I finally agreed. As I drove to the church, I could sense a voice saying, “This could be the last time you drive to the church sick.” I knew the medical community had done all it could. Could it be possible that Jesus would heal me?

[At the close of the service Jeanie went forward for prayer.] My prayer was “Lord, please either heal me or let me die. I just cannot live with this illness any longer.” When I opened my eyes, I saw I was bathed in light. Then from the middle of the light, God sent a washing of love that penetrated every part of my being. As I stood in the light, it was as though I could see 4-inch-tall letters that read, “YOU ARE HEALED.”

Suddenly I found my hearing aid on my lap. For the first time I was able to hear without it. The noise in my head and the dizziness vanished. Feeling in my extremities had returned. I could actually walk through a door without hitting the door frame. And taste! It came back in a little over a month, while I was licking envelopes in the office. That evening, as my daughter and I went up and down the aisles of the supermarket, I kept opening the packages as I threw them into the cart. I hadn't tasted food for four years, and I couldn't wait!

Two enterprising wannabe burglars are probably vowing to watch fewer action movies, and instead do more research on the tools of their trade. Local police say that video surveillance footage shows two burglars attempting to cut open an automatic teller machine (ATM) using a blowtorch. And if all you know about crime is what you watch in heist movies, this is a sensible approach. In such movies, blowtorches are a common tool in breaching seemingly impenetrable surfaces, like the metal casing of an ATM.

Unfortunately, their attempt did not go according to plan. Rather than cutting it open, the blowtorch melted the metal, welding the hinges shut. The crowbar-wielding accomplice was left with nothing to do, and the pair quickly left in shame.

Potential preaching angles: Just as these thieves could not breach the ATM, so it is true that Satan cannot breach God’s love for us. The enemy attacks our weakest points, but that weakness is turned to strength when we depend on God. God's faithfulness is displayed when he protects us in the trials we endure.

Here’s the most common question from visitors to Brooklyn Museum's Egyptian art galleries: Why are the statues’ noses broken?

Edward Bleiberg, who oversees the museum's Egyptian art, was surprised the first few times he heard this question. He had taken for granted that the sculptures were damaged. Certainly, after thousands of years, an ancient artifact should show wear and tear. But the broken noses led Bleiberg to uncover a widespread pattern of deliberate destruction. He noted, “The consistency of the patterns … of damage found in sculpture suggests that it's purposeful.” A protruding nose on a three-dimensional statue is easily broken, he conceded, but the plot thickens when flat reliefs also have smashed noses.

The ancient Egyptians believed that the essence of a deity could inhabit an image of that deity. These campaigns of vandalism were therefore intended to "deactivate an image's strength." "The damaged part of the body is no longer able to do its job." Without a nose, the statue-spirit ceases to breathe, so that the vandal is effectively "killing" it. To hammer the ears off a statue of a god would make it unable to hear a prayer. Pharaohs regularly issued decrees with terrible punishments for anyone who would dare threaten their likeness.

Bleiberg noted the skill evidenced by the iconoclasts. "They were not vandals recklessly and randomly striking out works of art." In fact, the targeted precision of their chisels suggests that they were skilled laborers, trained and hired for this exact purpose.

Possible Preaching Angle: In the same way, our idols are absolutely powerless to help us, even as we keep running to them. God showed his utter contempt for the idol of Dagon in its temple (1 Sam. 5:1-5) when he threw it down and decapitated it. The prophets also spoke of the powerlessness of the idols to see, hear, or defend themselves (Ps. 135:15-18) but in contrast our God made the heavens and earth (Psalm 96:5).

In horror movies, the monster is scariest before you actually see it. For one local woman, that principle extended into the interior of her home. Washington County Sherriff’s Office responded to a 911 call from a woman who reported hearing a burglar locked in her bathroom. She saw shadows shifting under the door, and after officers appeared on scene, they heard a persistent rustling under the same door.

So, after issuing several commands to come out, and having brought in a K-9 unit for backup, they finally opened the door. "With guns drawn, deputies open the door to encounter the suspect … an automated robot vacuum," the sheriff's office said. “We entered the bathroom and saw a very thorough vacuuming job being done by a Roomba vacuum cleaner," Washington County Sheriff's Deputy Brian Rogers said.

The suspect was not taken into custody, however its likely to be sentenced to several months of continuous domestic servitude.

Potential Preaching Angles: In the eyes of God, the things we are afraid of are insignificant. Fears don't just make us scared, they can inhibit us from living out our calling. God commands us not to be afraid because nothing exists outside of God's control and God's enemies are impotent in comparison.

If miracles are impossible, then the resurrection of Jesus could not have occurred, and we must look for some natural explanation of the events. But if miracles are at least possible, then we can be open to following the evidence without bias.

In other words, whenever we hear of an event that seems contrary to the laws of nature, we naturally raise our guard. But we also shouldn't prejudge the evidence by ruling out the possibility of miracles just because they don't fit our categories. It’s unscientific to decide the outcome of an investigation before examining the facts.

Consider the following true story. Near the end of the eighteenth century the Western world first encountered the duck-billed platypus. The platypus, which is indigenous to Australia, has fur over its entire body, is the size of a rabbit, and has webbed feet. Yet since it lays eggs, it reproduces like a reptile! When the skin of a platypus was first brought to Europe, it was greeted with complete amazement. Was it a mammal or a reptile? The platypus seemed so bizarre that—despite the physical evidence of the skin and the testimony of the witnesses—many Londoners dismissed it as a sham.

Not until a pregnant platypus was shot and brought to London for observers to see with their own eyes did people begin to believe. Until this happened, some of the greatest thinkers refused to accept the existence of the platypus. The initial problem was that it did not fit some people's view of how the world operated. So they rejected it and then reached a verdict even though the weight of the evidence said otherwise.