It shouldn't come as a surprise that one of the devil's strategies at the end time is to so overload the circuits that the lines carrying the current of our lives begin to heat up. In the electrical systems in our houses, if something begins to overheat, the circuit breaker will cut off the current. But when it comes to our lives, we often aren't so lucky. Sometimes the important things that make up our lives catch fire and become permanently damaged.

Sometimes when we're dealing with our problems, we try to blame others. If that doesn't work, we simply say we couldn't help ourselves due to the damage we've sustained from dangerous drugs, sex abuse, ignorance, bad genes, malfunctioning neurotransmitters, poverty, mental illness, racism, or sexism. I'm not making light of serious things. I believe these things do real damage to our lives and our homes. However, many believe that people who have suffered any one of these tragedies are permanently ruined; if not spiritually, at least emotionally. The good news is that even though the things that have happened to us have deeply affected us, they need not incapacitate us or even hold us back.

On a radio talk show that I hosted, I once interviewed the director of Disabled Ministries in the conference where I worked. She developed rheumatoid arthritis when she was twelve years old, and the disease severely affected her arms and legs. She has spent most of her life in a wheelchair. During the interview, I asked her what it was like to be confined to her chair.

"Confined!" she exclaimed. Then she said something I have never forgotten. "The wheelchair is not confining, it is liberating,"

Her reply brought tears to my eyes. And it has helped me better understand the meaning of the gospel. In this life at least, we can't expect the gospel to do away completely with the crippling effect that sin has had on us. But, praise God, the gracious plan of salvation liberates us, enabling us to get on with this life until the time comes when God will wipe away all tears from our eyes, and this vale of sorrow will be no more.

However, our lives are not solely the result of what others have done to us. We ourselves have built-in liabilities that, even if we were in a heavenly environment with angels for companions, would surely bring about our ruin. The Bible teaches that there is something sinister embedded in our very being. Consider this text: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). And this one: "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies" (Matthew 15:19).

Because human nature is intrinsically sinful, we can't say that a bad environment makes us bad. Rather, it merely brings out the bad that is already in us. I am reminded of what David said: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalm 51:5).

Sometimes after I've preached, people will say to me, I wish So-and-so had been here to hear that." I'm left to wonder if they meant that to be a compliment or if they felt that the sermon didn't apply to them and that I was wasting my time preaching to people who didn't need it.  Once we understand our own spiritual need, the world gets bigger, not smaller.  Our outlook grows from "them" to "us."  In terms of spiritual need, we must always keep ourselves in the loop.

This concept is important in the context of the family.  If the atmosphere in our homes is to change, it will happen one person at a time.  And it seems that person might as well be me--and you.  This is not to infer that all the troubles in the home are my fault, or yours.  Rather, a new start ought logically to begin with the person who wakes up to the need first, and in this case, that's you and me.  Lord, Save my Family, pp. 30-31.