34 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever! 1 Chronicles 16:34
By Bro. John L. Cash
In the midst of a theological discussion at the lunch table the other day, somebody asked me if I thought this year was the beginning of “The Great Tribulation.” I replied that I thought 2020 wasn’t the end of the world, but something more like “The Great Aggravation.” Of course, I was joking, but I’m sure you can easily see how this year has added a degree of difficulty to everything we do, in matters small and large.
I haven’t had a lot of time to write my column this week because COVID made for a hectic week at school. It seems that in 2020 we are repeatedly asked to make an entirely new plan at a moment’s notice. For a couple of weeks (and maybe more) we’re being forced to scrap our “A/B” schedule and go back to full-time distance learning. Our coronavirus numbers are rising again.
So, in the midst of The Great Aggravation, I wanted to share a resource I’ve found so helpful in this time of great upheaval. I would venture to say that 
many of you are familiar with the devotional magazine The Upper Room. It has been published monthly since 1935 and is extremely popular. My grandmother introduced it to me when I was a small child, and Susan and I now receive it from our local congregation. As a source of daily encouragement and instruction in God’s Word, I highly recommend it to you. (They also have a great Facebook page with encouraging posts and photos.)
Only recently I discovered an additional blessing associated with this popular monthly magazine. During the pandemic, the magazine is offering the daily devotion (and a related scripture reading) via telephone. The number is (615) 212-2013. You should program that number into your cell phone right now, and set aside a time to call it every day. After all, the best things in life are free. Encouragement as well as some comfort from our daily aggravations are only a phone call away.
Dr. John L. Cash is the “Country Preacher Dad.” He was raised in Stuttgart, Arkansas, and spent almost 35 years being a country preacher in the piney woods five miles south of the little town of Hickory, Mississippi. He’s currently on a sabbatical from the preaching ministry, and is an English teacher at the Choctaw Tribal School. He and his lovely wife, Susan, live in a brick house in town (where the preacher always presses “Option 2” in his daily call to The Upper Room.) You can send him a note at countrypreacherdad@gmail.com.
