As of 11:25 p.m. January 25, 2010, I have turned forty years old, not in my body but in my walk in Christ. In a Bible GemLight about this time last year http://www.sapphirestreams.com/BGL/chalcedony002.html) I told you some of what God brought me through the first year of my salvation.

Considering all the trouble the world is currently going through, permit me to tell you more.

Of course I was under a lot pressure before I committed to Christ. While I asked for some of it, a good hefty load came from the world itself. The 1960's had its own share of fright.

During the Cuban missile crisis, all of us in St. Stephen's School in Kearny "religiously" practiced what to do if there was a nuclear threat. For a while, the warning siren would go off every Friday morning as a test. We would then quickly and properly (properly is a rarity to day and completely absent from most public school systems) get in line, go down to the cafeteria which was mainly below ground level, crawl under the tables, place our hands on our head and pray. I was the nervous type to begin with, but that made me more nervous.

There was the Viet Nam war. I would turn 18 and graduate in 1970. With that war came the ugly, shameful, disrespect that some crude people in the U.S.A. displayed against those brave young men who had returned from fighting that war.

Social unrest was going wild, and between that and the Communists I felt the Nation would soon be overthrown. Drug usage also increased.

Personally, I was also being torn apart by numerous past failures and struggles with deciding on what moral values I should have.

Though my nerves were rattled by all of this, a tremendous peace, the peace of God, came upon me when I surrendered to Christ. Troubles continue, but I am having a great life in Christ. I just had to get rid of the old one first. "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." -- Matthew 16:25

The same can happen to you. Your troubles might not all go away and there will always be some new ones. However, with Christ inside of us we can become victors over sin and the forces of the world.