The old song, This World Is Not My Home, has become more real to me in the last year and a half as we see friends and aquaintances dying from COVID and the related affects of it (blood clots, strokes, sudden deaths, etc…).

The pandemic is real, but the way it is being handled and dealt with has eroded my trust in the media, the medical profession, the so called “scientists,” and even some friends who think so differently than I do. It has not affected my trust in the politicians as my faith in them was already right close to zero. It’s hard to get lower than that, but they are working on it.

From day two of the shut down (March 18, 2020) I thought something was fishy. (I don’t know why I didn’t think it on day one.) I’m not a medical person, but it seemed to me that what we were doing was like killing a poisonous spider on our face with a sledge hammer. The “cure” was as bad or worse than the disease.

As my trust in earthly institutions erode, my trust and hope in Jesus has been strengthened.

At our annual Florida banquet on February 23, Tino Wallenda, of the famous Flying Wallenda Family, spoke to our audience from a chair that was balanced on a pipe about four feet off the ground (for 25 minutes!!). The pipe simulated the high wire. One of the lessons he gave us was that a high wire walker must focus on something that does not move. You cannot look at the traffic or the spectators or anything that moves as you walk the wire or you will lose your balance and fall to your death. The lesson is obvious: Keep your eyes on Jesus. He is the same today, yesterday and forever.

When Tino goes into prisons, he often invites inmates to walk the 15 foot long pipe that he has set up between two chairs, about two feet off the ground. Usually the champion inmate makes it about half way across the pipe before he falls off. Then Tino gets on the pipe and tells the inmate to “get behind me and put your hands on my shoulders. Now let’s go.” And the inmate makes it all the way across the “tight rope” with his hands on Tino’s shoulders. Every time! Follow Jesus. Lean on Him. He will lead us though this treacherous life.

Pandemics; wars; economic collapse; lying polititians; shortages;… Our only hope is Jesus.

                                                                                    Chorus:

This world is not my home, I’m just passing through.          Oh, Lord, You know I have no Friend like You.

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.        If Heaven’s not my home, then Lord, what will I do?

The angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door,               The angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door,

And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.                  And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.

Post Script: A neighboring farmer was planting corn. He kept his rows straight by lining the radiator cap of his John Deere tractor on a fence post or a bush at the far end of the field (this was before GPS on tractors). On one particular day he looked back as he planted and noticed that the row as curved as a rainbow! He looked again at the “bush” he was lined up with and realized that his “bush” was a cow! She was slowly walking east. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Don’t be fooled.       

                 “Many will come… claiming, ‘I am He.’ Do not follow them.” Luke 21:8