This guy at the post office was sorting the mail one morning like he did every other morning, and he came across a letter that was addressed simply TO GOD. He decided he might as well open it, and inside was a handwritten letter that read:

Dear God, I don’t know where else to turn. I need Your help. My family is coming to visit me for Easter and I want to prepare a nice Easter dinner for everyone, but I have had a lot of unexpected expenses and I have almost no money. If I could have $100, I would be so grateful. It would mean everything to me. Signed, Erna.

The letter had Erna’s return address, and the postal worker was so very touched, he decided to show it to all the workers at the post office. They, too, were very moved and decided they would take up a collection. He collected $96, sealed it in an envelope, and sent it back to Erna with no return address. A few days later, again he was sorting mail and again he came across a letter from Erna, TO GOD, was the address. He opened this letter as well, and it read:

Dear God, Thank you so very much for giving me the money. I was able to have a wonderful Easter celebration for my family. It was such a joyous occasion. I can’t thank you enough. By the way, the money you sent was actually short $4. It was probably those thieving buzzards at the post office!

Paul says in our 2^ndlesson…Brothers and sisters, you were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Because the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit. So if you do that you’re are going to miss out on experiencing the fruits of the Spirit. They are going to pass you right by. And the fruits of the Spirit are wonderful things like love and joy and peace and patience and gentleness. ”

How is your fruit basket doing? Could it use a refill, or at least a replenishment? How is it that the very same Erna who happily prepared an Easter feast for her family, who happily expressed her gratefulness to God in writing – which every therapist and counseling professional including Oprah insists is the key to contentment. That is, taking the time to express intentional gratitude. How is it that this same Erna could lash out and curse a nameless, faceless group of people at the post office before God.

The challenge laid before us this morning in this epistle lesson is – NOT LOSING HEART. How do we keep from compartmentalizing our spirituality as Erna did with her letter to God? Lord, You are so good and I love with you all my heart. But my neighbors – and my postal carriers – are all dirty rotten scoundrels until proven otherwise. How do we not let the world invade our faithfulness and steal from our fruit basket?

Is it possible that the fruits of the spirit produced by our faith can spoil? After all, fruit is an iffy proposition. You can buy a cantaloupe at Publix that looks plump and beautiful on the outside but turns out to have no flavor. My son-in-law always tells me to take it back to the store. “Publix will refund your money.” And I tell him, “No way! Fruit is always a gamble. I know that going in.” Now, you can buy all organic fruit. By the way, organic is a grocery store term that means, TWICE AS EXPENSIVE.  The organic protects you from pesticides, allegedly. But again, no guarantees of what’s on the inside.

How do we protect this fragile faith of ours?  St. Paul says, “You can’t lose heart.” And in the Bible he gives us three ways to keep the faith. FIRST OF ALL, BELIEVE IN THE FUTURE. St. Paul writes, “For your slight momentary afflictions is preparing for you an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen…” Paul had a hope about the future that all the exhausting and dangerous trials he went through could not erase.

When Winston Churchill was once asked by a reporter, what was the greatest weapon his country possessed against the Nazi regime of Hitler? Without hesitation he said: “It was what England’s greatest weapon has always been–Hope.”  Now compare that to the writings of Alexander Solzehnietzen in his GULAG ARCHIPELAGO. He writes of convicts called “goners.” These were men who had given up hope and were already dead on their feet. They might shuffle along in line and stare into space a few more weeks, but it was all over with for them. Why? They had given up. There is much clinical evidence that we cannot live without hope. Doctors know that telling some patients that they are terminal is in itself a death sentence. When people have no hope, when they give up, the wasting away Paul talks about accelerates.

For St. Paul, hope kept him from losing heart. Belief in the future will do that. That’s our first step in order to keep from losing heart. Believe in the future.

THE SECOND STEP IS TO FOCUS ON THE TASKS AT HAND. Wise people learn to let go of both their regrets about the past and their anxieties about the future and to concentrate on those necessary things that must be done today.

Now, to be fair, that is a learned behavior and one that we much more successfully master in our later years.  I know I was guilty of wishing portions of my life away in my younger years telling myself, “When I get past this event or get to that new location to live and work then I will really be happy and productive.” It certainly is NOT what we mean when we talk about our faith in Savior blessing us with a hopeful future. The most egregious example of this “always waiting for a better tomorrow” syndrome is when I hear parents saying, “Life will be so much better when the last child is out of diapers” or “when my kids are in school all day” or “when my kids are old enough that we don’t need to hire a babysitter” or “when my kid is old enough to drive so he can run errands for me”. On second thought, scratch that last example. Not sure I’ve ever heard a mother say “I can’t wait until my child is old enough to drive.”

So focusing on the tasks at hand means not wishing our lives away – or the childhood of our children away. That focus also takes into count what Jesus said: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself” As Casey Stengel used to tell his baseball players when they began to tighten up in the homestretch, “We play ’em one at a time.”

That’s good advice to all of us. It’s too late to do anything about the past. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Besides, tomorrow will be determined at least in part by how we treat today. So, let’s shut the door on the past and not stress over or hurry up into the unknown future, and let’s make today a purposeful and productive one. How do we strengthen the inner person? Believe in the future. Focus on the tasks at hand.

And of course, the final and essential KEY IS TO TRUST IN A HEAVENLY FATHER.  As Maya Angelou once said, “Worry and trust cannot live in the same house. When worry is allowed to come in one door, trust walks out the other door; and worry stays until trust is invited in again, whereupon worry walks out.”   How true it is.

Do not lose heart. Even as life takes its toll on our outer person, even as an angry and sinful world can encourage us to react in a variety of ways that don’t glorify God, the inner person can overcome the world and not lose heart. Believe in the future. Focus on the tasks at hand. Know that “God has never yet taken His eyes off of you.”   AMEN