John Stanko

It looks like I won't be able to carry my toiletries in my briefcase any longer due to the foiled terrorist plot in the UK.  Drat!  What if I need my hairspray in flight? 

People always ask me if I'm scared to fly, especially internationally.  I always tell the story of the time I was in Johannesburg and a man informed me that a gunman got loose back home in Pittsburgh and killed five people, one of whom was my chaplain in college.  I respond to the question by saying, "I'm no more scared to travel than to stay home."  I do know, however, that the risk is greater when I fly, so I just commit my trip to the Lord and go.

I gave my life to the Lord in 1973, I didn't loan it to Him for safe keeping.  If He chooses to claim it in my bed at home or on a flight at 39,000 feet, that's His business, not mine.  I have work to do and I'm going to do it.  It is interesting that I was meditating on the following verses this week.  I guess this is a chance to apply the truth found therein:

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging (Psalm 46:1-3). 

If you need more reassurance and comfort, then read Psalm 91, which we read aloud every morning as a group when I was in Afghanistan three years ago with a team of people from around the world.  It's times like these that we must take the promises in the Bible seriously and apply them to current events.

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