LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, August 26, 2025

If only our foresight was as good as our hindsight. Maybe we would make better decisions. Maybe we wouldn’t worry so much. Maybe we wouldn’t whine so much.

We tend to be pessimistic in the midst of our problems. We project the greatest harm as the likeliest possibility. We can hardly wait for the future so we can look back with regret. It is in our fleshly nature to expect the worst.

In his book Too Soon To Quit, George Sweeting, former President of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, told this story.

“After the stock market crashed in 1929, Dad could no longer find work in his bricklaying trade. In desperation, he took a job as night watchman for $28 a week. The Depression taught my family many life-building lessons:

• We learned the importance of each family member as we struggled to meet the monthly mortgage payment. Mother took in washing and ironing. Brother Bill and I sold magazines door-to-door. The three boys helped deliver milk. We all made hat bands for a nearby factory, made and sold paper flowers.
• The Depression days also taught us thrift and frugality. When we used tea bags, we did so again and again. The phone was used only for emergencies. One electric light was allowed to be turned on per room. Usually, we all studied and worked in a single room.
• We also learned the value of money and the importance of avoiding credit. Mother used to say, “If your outgo is greater than your income, then your upkeep is headed for a downfall.”

“The Great Depression strengthened our faith. A few years of poverty can do more for spiritual maturity than 10 years of prosperity. I look back with gratitude for the lessons we learned.”

To hear some people talk today you would think that we are on the verge of another crash. Whether we are or not should not be our focus. Our faith in Almighty and Sovereign God is our focus. With proper foresight we will see God’s hand providing us with strength, perseverance, and hope that will allow us to praise Him in hindsight.

That was the prayer of praise from the lips and pen of Hezekiah after he was rescued from death.

Isaiah 38:17 “Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back.”

He saw God’s hand directing every step and action so that he was made stronger and more faithful than ever. Proper foresight will give us that kind of hindsight. Oh if we would only learn to praise Him in foresight because we truly trust His character and His promises.

When every crisis of life is over, there are two things I want to be true of me:

1. That I can look back in hindsight and say that I trusted God throughout it.
2. That I will look back in hindsight and see how God used my faith and hope in Him alone to bring encouragement to others.

To quote the words of the worship band Casting Crowns, “I will praise Him in the storm.”

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, August 25, 2025

What would you choose to believe if at the moment of being told by a doctor that you had 30 days to live, God came to you and clearly stated that you had 15 more years to live?

That’s kind of what happened to Hezekiah.

Isaiah 38:1 “In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”

Hezekiah was very ill. He was told by the prophet Isaiah that he was going to die from his illness. Hezekiah prayed earnestly and declared his faithfulness to the Lord. God showed grace and granted his request for an extended life and gave him 15 more years. God confirmed the promise with a miracle by making the sun go backwards for a brief time. Hezekiah was incredibly blessed.

So what do you do with a blessing? There are two choices really. One is to use the opportunity to bring honor to the One who gave it to you. The other is to use the blessing to serve your own desires. It all depends upon what you believe about the following two statements:

• God is gracious and merciful.
• God is righteous and just.

Of those two statements, we tend to relate to the first one better than the second. It’s our human nature to want grace and mercy when we have been wrong, but to resist the consequences of our actions. We want what we decide is right for ourselves and we want no fear of justice if we are wrong. We want God to constantly forgive us and overlook our rebelliousness while we continue to pursue our own selfish goals.

Let’s analyze why we do that. Here’s what I think. Ultimately, we love ourselves more than we love God. Sounds overly simple, but it is the true heart of the issue. If we truly loved God and recognized what it cost Him to provide the grace He extends, then we would never mock His grace by taking advantage of it for our own benefit.

Hezekiah chose to love himself more than God. He was given a chance to father an heir to the throne. He had no son prior to his illness. He was given a chance to continue the reforms he had been making in the spiritual condition of the nation. He had an opportunity to show the people the reflection of God’s glory and grace, and to show them how to trust everything to their Father in heaven, including their status in the world.

Instead, Hezekiah chose to use the gift of fifteen years to exalt himself. Eventually it cost the freedom of his nation and the spiritual rebellion of the people. His own son who inherited the throne was wicked and reversed every reform that Hezekiah had made. God’s justice resulted in the capture of the land and the people by the Babylonians.

So what happened? Well, after receiving the gift of God’s grace, Hezekiah had some visitors from Babylon. As they took a tour of the palace, Hezekiah decided to show off and try to impress the delegation with his riches and power. Nothing is said about Hezekiah giving credit to God. Rather than being an ambassador of God, he sought the approval of Babylon’s ambassadors.

When confronted with what he had done, Hezekiah admitted his sin and God once again forgave him, but this time enforced the consequences. The nation would eventually be taken captive by the very people that he had tried to impress.

Here’s how it’s described in 2 Chronicles 32.

“In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. He prayed to the LORD, who answered him and gave him a miraculous sign. But Hezekiah’s heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the LORD’S wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem.”

Hezekiah was more in love with himself than he was with God. He proved it when after receiving an indescribable blessing, he turned it around on himself instead of using it to honor the one who gave it to him.  The envoys of Babylon had come seeking to know about God and the sign they had seen of the sun moving backwards. Instead they got an earful and eyeful of Hezekiah. How sad.

Be careful what you do with blessings – your actions determine who you really love.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, August 22, 2025

Never underestimate an opponent. One of my favorite examples of that comes from the 1980 Olympics. The Russian hockey team was formidable. They knew it. Perhaps they became overconfident. They certainly didn’t think that a rag-tag bunch of amateurs from American stood a chance. But by the end of the game the world was shouting “USA.”

Such was the case with the Assyrian army. A formidable foe. Indomitable. Except for one thing – they overlooked the power of their opponent’s God. But the expression of God’s power can be contingent on our recognition of the enemy’s power.

When Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, He had exhausted all his own ideas and energy. He came to the Lord humbly to release all authority over the problem to God. He wanted no control of or recognition for the outcome. He trusted God’s purpose and power.

In his humble stance before the LORD, Hezekiah admitted his own weakness in the face of a seemingly unconquerable opponent. Listen to what the King says in His prayer.

“It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands.”

Hezekiah admitted to God that he understood the power of the enemy. He knew his own weakness in dealing with such oppositional strength. He cried out to the only source of strength greater than the problem – God.

Our prayers when asking God for help overcoming our problems must include two things:

1. An acknowledgement of who God is; and
2. An acknowledgement of who we are.

When we pray with a focus on God’s strength and a confession of our weakness then the power of God is released to bring about God’s intended outcomes. And those outcomes are guaranteed when we let go and get out of God’s way.

So today, begin to learn to pray like Hezekiah. Don’t try to cover up for your weaknesses by underestimating your enemy. Be honest about it. Tell God you are unable to handle it. Then step back and watch God work. You will be amazed at how good it feels.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, August 21, 2025

People are deeply hurting over the spiritual, political, and economic conditions in our world. But one thing is always true – God is in control! His promises NEVER fail. He cannot not fulfill His Word. We tend to forget that in times of stress and hardship. At the first sign of trouble we quickly move into self-protection mode. We take control and try to fix it.  Why do we do that? Why is it so easy for us to start trusting ourselves again rather than trusting God?

In the story of King Hezekiah, we learned yesterday how he prayed, and how we should pray, when the odds are overwhelmingly against us. Now look at the answer God gives through Isaiah in verse 21 of chapter 37. He says, “Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is the word the LORD has spoken against him:”

God is pleased with Hezekiah’s prayer because it was one of surrender, not selfishness. Hezekiah stretched out the problem before the Lord, indicating that he was releasing control of the outcome to his Lord. As a result, God spoke against the king of Assyria.  God will speak against our issues as well when we surrender them to Him.

In the next few days we will look at some of the specifics of God’s answer to Hezekiah, because there are some incredible truths for us to ponder. But for today, let’s look at the end of this story. Here’s what happens as a result of Hezekiah’s prayer of surrender:

“Then the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there. One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.”

Notice three things from the story that are applicable to our present situation:

• Jesus Christ is involved. The Angel of the Lord is Jesus, and He is personally involved in conquering the enemy that is attacking you.
• The problem will go away. At the hand of God, and by His will, He can remove the problem and He can give you sufficient grace based on your faith in Him to sustain you while the problem remains.
• The problem will be permanently punished. The King of Assyria was murdered by his own sons and he went to his eternal punishment. It may seem like it’s taking a long time, but not one problem will survive the judgment of God.

God is in control! So cast all your cares upon Him. Surrender every issue and problem to Him. The promise of God is that His peace, that surpasses all human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Isaiah 37:15-16 ”And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: “O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.”

Fourteen years ago when we had some winter warm weather that was melting our snow, the end of my driveway was filled with slush. So I took the shovel and went out to remove it. After four or five exertions of my muscles to lift that heavy wet mess and toss it aside I felt a little twinge in my chest. I took a break, and it seemed to be okay, so I finished the job.

When I got into the house I called the doctor and made an appointment. The next day I was having an EKG at his office, and when that turned out normal (if anything about me can ever be considered normal) he scheduled a stress test. A week later I was on a treadmill having my heart function analyzed, and I praise the Lord that everything was fine. But that first twinge of pain, which was probably just muscles screaming from inactivity, was a real wakeup call.

When Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, invaded Judah, it was a real wakeup call for the people and for King Hezekiah. He had tried to be a faithful king. He had destroyed all the places of worship in the land that were primarily used by the people to worship idols. He had asked people to focus their worship on the one true God by coming to Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. But the people were rebellious and wanted what they wanted when they wanted it. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

When Sennacherib sent his envoys to Hezekiah with another letter defaming the name of God, it was a wakeup call for the King of Judah. This time he did not seek after the prophet Isaiah to try to re-connect with God. This time he went directly to God. He had been encouraged by Isaiah’s words that the Lord was going to deal with this attack. That encouragement motivated him to begin anew his own relationship with the Lord.

When Hezekiah approaches God, he does so humbly. He went to the temple and spread his problems out before God. How often do we go to the Lord in a time of distress and ask for help, but we never really release the control of the problem to the Lord? Hezekiah laid everything on the altar and gave it all to Him. He showed great faith and trust in the Lord’s outcome.

Let’s read Hezekiah’s prayer, and notice the honor and awe he expresses towards God. Our prayers to God for every problem, every issue, and every need should be encapsulated in this kind of praise and worship to Almighty God.

“O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God. It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God.”

Not only should our prayers be bathed in praise and worship, but the ultimate request we make no matter what the issue about which we pray should be the glory of God on the earth. Hezekiah acknowledges his fear over the facts of his circumstances. Sennacherib has already been successful over every other nation that worshiped other false gods. But Hezekiah knows that the will of God is for all men to know Him and connect to Him, so that is the basis of His request.

Friends, we get pretty selfish in our prayers don’t we. We want God to bring us glory. We ask Him to meet our needs or solve our problems according to our projected outcomes that we believe will benefit us the most. But when we pray according to the will of God – that the people who see what God does in our lives will have to acknowledge that He alone is God – then we will be praying correctly.

So what wakeup calls has God sent into your life recently? Are you responding according to His will and glory or your own?

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Tuesday, August 19, 2025

I have had several conversations recently with people who don’t believe in God. All are willing to admit that there may be a God, but that His identity and involvement in the course of human events are both questionable. All the people are in distress in their lives. None know where to turn.

This was the plight of King Hezekiah. The King of Assyria had laid siege to the land of Judah and was terrorizing them with physical and verbal attacks. Hezekiah knew of God but did not trust in Him nor serve Him. Neither did the people he ruled. But now, in this time of distress and disgrace, he turned to the only place that still offered a glimmer of hope – the prophet of God named Isaiah.

There are two things that are obvious to me in this story that are still true of people’s life stories today:

• They are under attack, causing stress, leading to distress and even disgrace; and
• They don’t have a personal relationship with the God who can save them.

Notice King Hezekiah’s message to the prophet Isaiah in chapter 37 verse 4.“It may be that the LORD your God will hear the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the LORD your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives.”

Twice the king refers to God, but not personally. He refers to Him as the Lord your God. He knew that Jehovah was Isaiah’s God, but he couldn’t say that was true for himself. Yet when all hope was gone, and Hezekiah came to the realization that there was nothing he could do to solve the problem, he sought God.

People today are in the same situation. They are stressed and in distress. They have a financial crisis, or a marriage crisis. They are hurting and want someone to reach out to them and resolve the problem. If only they would understand that Jesus Christ will give them hope even when all the circumstances of life are hopeless. If only they would come to a place of surrender and give their hearts and minds to Jesus. Then they could know that the Lord God is their God, and that He never fails and never forsakes those who love Him and serve Him.

There is one more interesting point in this story. When Hezekiah was at the end of his rope, and needed to contact God, he knew where to go. He knew that there was a man who had a relationship with God and whose life was different because of it. He knew that he could go to Isaiah and get a message to God.

Oh how I pray that is always true of me…and you. Even though the people of the world usually just want someone to extend a helping hand or relieve their pain, they know that the people of God are the ones with the compassionate hearts. Or at least they should be. Are we? Are we truly people’s connecting point to God?

Here are some questions to ponder:

• Are we the people who stand out in the world because in the midst of life’s worst problems our faith in God controls our emotional reactions?
• Are we the people who maintain an attitude of hope in the righteousness of God when all the rest of the world is fighting for their rights?
• Are we the people who model to the world the peace of God when all around us people are living in fear?
• When someone finally hits rock bottom, and has nowhere to turn, will they think of us as the place where they can connect to God?
• Does our attitude and reaction to crisis show that the Lord is truly our God?

I see God’s people handling the financial, emotional, relational, and political crises of our day in two ways. One makes them look and act a lot like those with no hope. Others have their hearts set on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, and their affections and hope are on Him. Those are the true faithful followers of Jesus. Those are the people we can turn to for help and hope. Be one of those people.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Monday, August 18, 2025

Silence is scary – especially for someone as impulsively vocal as I am. But according to an old saying, ”Silence is Golden.” The whole saying goes like this – “Speech is silvern, but silence is golden.” In the Bible, the wisdom of King Solomon said that there is “a time to speak and a time to be silent.” I have the speaking part down real well. It doesn’t turn out well many times, but I certainly speak a lot. It’s the silence part that needs a lot of work.

King Hezekiah’s representatives were being verbally bashed by the commander of the Assyrian army. They were being told that they had no hope of surviving unless they surrendered. But after the audible assault was over, they remained silent. They were under orders to do so. They obeyed. Hezekiah wanted information. He didn’t want debate. This was a battle that would be won by the Lord’s power not by man’s reason. That’s the lesson we need to learn and apply more frequently in our lives.

There are numerous passages about silence in the Bible. I have narrowed them down to the two areas that may need the most work.

When verbally attacked, follow the example of Jesus

Matthew 26:59-63 “The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death.   But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward. Finally two came forward   and declared, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’”   Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?”   But Jesus remained silent.”

Isaiah 53:7 “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.”

When we are under attack from others, or even if they just make a decision or mistake that affects us negatively, be silent. Leave it in God’s hands.

When angry at someone, think a long time before you speak

Psalm 4:4 “In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.”

Proverbs 17:28 “Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue.”

Don’t respond to people in anger. Be silent until you can respond rationally and not emotionally.

But we must not always be silent. The Bible teaches that we must use our words to build others up instead of tear them down. Unfortunately we tend to be silent or speak the wrong things when we could be speaking the good things.

The church of Jesus Christ would be a whole lot better place if we would learn to speak when we should and be silent at all other times. Be silent when it hurts others. Be silent when we need to hear from God. But speak up when it helps others and draws them closer to Jesus.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Friday, August 15, 2025

Invitations come in all shapes and sizes for all kinds of events, and they are designed by the sender to do three things: first, to appeal to your emotions with the design of the invitation; second, to give you the information of the event and the blessings you will receive by attending; and third, by the design of the invitation, to reveal the personality and/or character of the sender.

In the same way, our enemy, who is called Satan, or the Devil, or the Roaring Lion seeking to devour us, also sends invitations to us. They come in all shapes and sizes, and like junk emails they clog the inbox of our mind all day long. They are very attractive. They are designed to appeal to us and give us exactly the information the sender knows we need to make a spontaneous and emotional decision. But what is different about his invitations when compared to the ones we receive is this – Satan’s do not reveal his personality or his character.

Satan is a deceiver and will use any lie he can to convince you to come to his party. What will appear on the outside to be an opportunity to find pleasure and fulfillment is really an invitation to death and destruction. Ultimately, Satan cannot offer anything else.

One of his most devious invitations is the one that leads us to doubt the character and promises of God. Satan knows that he cannot appeal to Christians with a display of his own character, so his only hope is to diminish our view of the nature and character of God to make himself look better. It’s the same tactic we use when we belittle others to make ourselves look better.

This is demonstrated in today’s portion of the story found in Isaiah 36. The commander of the Assyrian army is sending an invitation to the nation of Israel to make peace with them and join their powerful and prosperous kingdom. He does three things: he paints a word picture in verses 16-17 of the blessing they would receive by joining – “Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern, until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.”

He also warns them in verse 12 of what will happen if they don’t attend – “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?”

But then came  the main emphasis of his invitation – he destroys the people’s hope in the Lord. He starts in verse 11 by saying that he is actually doing this by the command of the Lord – “Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this land without the LORD? The LORD himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.” He proceeds to tell them in verse 18 that they can no longer trust the Lord – “Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?“

That’s the same invitation Satan sends us every day when he invites us to be married to the world. He appeals to the pleasures of the world. He convinces us that anything less than that is actually ugly and will hurt us. He disguises himself as the Lord so we think we are really obeying, Then he plants seeds of distrust in us so that we begin to think that God isn’t really meeting all of our needs and isn’t even capable of doing so.

Be careful in everything. We receive numerous invitations to be married to the world every day. They are lies. Let’s not be people who just say that we love and trust God. Let’s live like we trust Him.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, August 14, 2025

Isaiah 36:7 And if you say to me, “We are depending on the LORD our God”—isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar”?

To fully understand the context and the application of today’s devotional, you should read the entire thirty-sixth chapter of Isaiah. Here’s a quick summary.

King Hezekiah is reigning in Judah. The king of Assyria, Sennacherib, has invaded the land and is attacking all the fortified cities. Sennacherib sends his commander with a large army over to Jerusalem. Hezekiah sends a delegation to meet them. The Assyrian commander makes these statements:

• Why are you so confident?
• You claim to have strength, but we see no evidence of it.
• You say you have allies, but they are weak and powerless against us.
• You claim to trust in your God, but you have stopped worshiping Him and have adopted other gods.

It’s this last statement that hits me really hard. Here was the enemy of God, with no faith in the One True God at all, who is attacking God’s chosen people, and they notice a problem of hypocrisy. God’s covenant people have ignored the covenant and rejected their faith in God alone. For the sake of pleasing the people they live with – wives, children, and friends – they have removed what they thought was an obstacle to survival in the world – their faith in Jehovah God. They believed that they would fit into their culture better if they eliminated the one thing that made all other people angry.

David Wilkerson once preached on the subject of anguish and said, “What anguish it must bring to the heart of God when He sees that the Bride He was preparing for marriage to His Son has instead been married to the world.”

It is a sad day when the Bride of Christ has forgotten the upcoming marriage feast and chosen to be married to the world.

My friends, as followers of Christ, why are we so easily persuaded to make friends with the world and adopt its standards? Why do we continue to see our faith in Jesus Christ as an obstacle to acceptance with the world rather than a means of bringing true life to the world? Why have we chosen to become adulterous in our spiritual lives and have a fling with the world? It is time for us to be recognized by our faith and not our positions or our possessions. It is time for us to find pleasure in doing the Lord’s work rather than finding more ways to find pleasure from the world.

Renounce your relationship with the world today, and prepare your heart, soul, mind, and body to be married to Jesus.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Have you ever heard the expression, “Keep your chin up”? Sure you have. My need to know things sent me to the internet to find out where that expression originated. According to one site, the first use of was in the Pennsylvania newspaper The Evening Democrat, October 1900, under the heading Epigrams Upon the Health-giving Qualities of Mirth:

“Keep your chin up. (Don’t hang your head.) Don’t take your troubles to bed with you – hang them on a chair with your trousers or drop them in a glass of water with your teeth.”

The unfortunate thing is that I couldn’t find one reference to this idiom that gave any reason why we should be able to keep our chin up, other than the reference to the possible health-giving benefits of mirth. That’s sad. People know the value of a positive attitude but fail to find the real motivation for one.

As I mentioned yesterday, we are in a section of Isaiah that looks ahead to the promised return of the King and the establishment of His kingdom on the earth. Here is our motivation for releasing worry and fear. Here is the encouragement we need to be strong. God is coming to redeem us and to set the world straight. Peace will reign because the Prince of Peace will be on His throne. That’s sufficient for me to keep my chin up.

Read carefully the rest of this thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah. You will find great encouragement to press on. You will find the hope you need to be determined to finish the race of life strong. You will discover the joy of knowing that Jesus is coming to save you.

Isaiah 35:1-10
“The desert and the parched land will be glad;  the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.  Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;  it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.  The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,  the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;  they will see the glory of the LORD,  the splendor of our God. Strengthen the feeble hands,  steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts,  “Be strong, do not fear;  your God will come,  he will come with vengeance;  with divine retribution  he will come to save you.” Then will the eyes of the blind be opened  and the ears of the deaf unstopped.  Then will the lame leap like a deer,  and the mute tongue shout for joy.  Water will gush forth in the wilderness  and streams in the desert.  The burning sand will become a pool,  the thirsty ground bubbling springs.  In the haunts where jackals once lay,  grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. And a highway will be there;  it will be called the Way of Holiness.  The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it.No lion will be there,  nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there.  But only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the LORD will return.  They will enter Zion with singing;  everlasting joy will crown their heads.  Gladness and joy will overtake them,  and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”

Now there’s a reason to keep your chin up.

Pastor John