Good morning everyone and welcome back to another mornings with the Masters.

We devote ourselves to the Lord daily with you.

We are picking back up with new morning mercies,

and I'm just going to take from here.

It says this,

There are so many reasons to be discouraged in this fallen world.

It's a wonder that anyone is happy. It's discouraging to watch your marriage turn cold and

distant. It's disheartening to be betrayed by a dear friend. It's

disappointing to lose the job you worked at with such commitment. It's depressing to

face a sickness that you're not sure you'll ever kick. It's hard to face the rebellion

and rejection of one of your children. It's discouraging to hear so often about

corruption and politics and government. It's disheartening to have to be concerned

about crime and injustice. It's tough to deal with the weaknesses of old age.

It's hard to be mocked and rejected for your faith.

It's sad to see your church become more of a place of controversy than gospel healing.

It can seem as if everything in your life is in the process of decaying or in danger of going bad.

People die, dreams die, flowers die, and marriages, churches, jobs, and friendships go bad.

If you look around this old world that God created isn't

doing very well. In many ways it's a hard discouraging place to live. The downward

spiral of the fallen world can get to you. It seems that everything

is impermanent or in the process of falling apart. But that's not all that is discouraging. It often seems as if you're powerless to make much of a change.

You do everything you can to restore your marriage, but it just seems stuck.

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