Life, according to Ron Archer, is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you choose to respond.
“We have the power to choose, to be people of faith or people of fear,” Archer said. “And even fear has its place. It can bring people to their knees, to pray, to repent.” Or it can help us to self-actualize and achieve clarity of thought—the understanding that some things are out of our control and in the hands of a higher power.
In times of strife or storm, one can either have faith or have fear, and even fear sometimes turns to faith. Archer referred to the story of David, who ran toward Goliath even when others—including King Saul—were afraid.
Archer recalled an experience that taught him more about the lessons in David’s story. During a trip to Israel, he once met some shepherds who carried staffs covered in interesting markings and dates. When he commented that the staffs were beautiful, the shepherds quickly corrected him.
“They said, ‘No, what this is, is every time we faced a crisis, dealing with a mountain lion or some sort of adversity, and God brought us through it, we would mark it on our staff,’” he said. “You remember this day and carve it into our shepherd’s staff, and remember that the same God who rescued us from the hand of the bear or the hand of the lion is the same God who will take us through this virus, or take us through this adversity.
“David said, ‘Your staff and your rod, they comfort me,’ and I never understood that until I met these shepherds in Israel.”
