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Across Nicaragua, graffiti plastered houses, walls, and public buildings. The most prevalent campaign slogan everywhere was: “Daniel 5:25.” Intended to be a simple instruction on how to vote, it literally meant, “Vote for Daniel Ortega, the 5th position on the ballot, on the 25th day of September.”
But Christians in Nicaragua saw a hidden meaning that only God, the author of humor, could orchestrate. For Daniel 5:25 in the Bible reads, “God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.: Christians wondered if Daniel Ortega had unwittingly proclaimed the prophecy against his own rule. The church waited, hoping the prophecy would bring an end, not only to the economic and social destruction of Mr. Ortega’s communist reign, but also an end to the oppression of the church.
That was 1989. Under the communist Sandanistas, Nicaragua, once the bread basket of Central America and a net exporter of food, had become a food importer and had dropped to an economic level second only to that of Haiti in this hemisphere. It was a nation where communist spies were sent into churches to seek out anti-Sandinistas, a nation nearly devoid of foreign missionaries, and a country where the celebration of Christmas and Easter was outlawed by the communist government. Yet, for the first time in two generations there was guarded hope in the humid tropical air because Nicaragua had scheduled its first free election.
Nicaraguans faced their second free national elections Oct. 20. International observers were there again to see that the elections went forward as planned, but in the run-up to the elections, an air of uncertainty—with incumbent President Violeta Chamorro stepping down and Mr. Ortega’s entry into the race—remained.
Even the most pessimistic political soothsayer did not predict the extent of Mr. Ortega’s 1989 loss. He received less than 20 percent of the popular vote, a thunderous victory for Mrs. Chamorro and the 14-party UNO coalition.
Greg Dabel in Managua, World, October 27, 1996, Vol. 11, No. 23, pp. 20-21
A man told his psychologist my anxieties are disturbing my dreams. I dream that I am in a pup tent, and then I dream I am in a Teepee. The doctor said I know your problem you are too tense.
"Write out your goal. What are the obstacles? What are the rewards? Is it worth it? Are you willing to pay the price? If so, visualize the rewards and get excited about it. Keep reselling yourself Go forward"
Get the right perspective. When Goliath came against the Israelites, the soldiers all thought, "He’s so big we can never kill him." David looked at the same giant and though, "He’s so big I ...
Have you ever been in front of a camera when the flash went off and you were blinded for a moment? This is the way some problems hit us. We are blinded by the problems that seem overwhelming to such a degree that we don’t know what to do. We can’t see anything. We can’t see past the problem or the challenge because it is so overwhelming in our lives.
It happens to all of us at one time or another. It is very normal, even for people that go to church. The essence of the matter is, what do we do after we are blinded by the problem? What do you do when you get hit by a problem? How do you overcome this? How do you overcome when something hits you so hard with such a swift power that you are utterly blinded by it? How do you overcome it?
What do you do when you face giants in your life? Do you give into to fear? The story of David and Goliath illustrates how to take on the giants in your life—even those ones that might blindside you.
“The Fundamental idea of Spirit in Hebrew and Greek is breath, air, wind, storm – the intensity depending on the context. It may be a gentle breath (John 20:22), a gale-force wind (Ex 15:8), a cooling breeze (Gen 3:8). Most essentially Spirit is transcendent and divine, not mere flesh; it is the energy of life itself and is present in nature and in history. Most wonderfully, the Spirit is God’s face turned toward us and God’s p...
