One person commits suicide every 16.2 minutes…
Nearly 1 in 6 High School students has seriously contemplated suicide…
1 in 12 has attempted suicide…
For youth between 10 to 24 suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death…

It is proven suicide can be prevented through awareness…

Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ute8Af4cq8

“He who gathers in summer is a wise son;
He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame.” PR 10:5

No matter what season we are in, our goal is to stay fervent, passionate, and on fire.

Both sets of grandparents were farmers. Our friends were farmers. I worked on farms, and played in my cousins’ barns. I remember collecting maple syrup using horses with drawn sleighs as a young boy. The farming culture is a busy one. You rise early, and you work hard.

Maybe that’s why I am drawn to scriptures that use agricultural illustrations. Because I remember the intensity and urgency of the harvest season, I cannot imagine a scene where one among us would be caught sleeping while everyone else is so completely engrossed in bringing in the sheaves.

PR 10:4-5 are a couplet contrasting diligence with laziness. “The hand of the diligent makes rich” is completed by the idea of gathering in summer, the time during the agriculture cycle when it is easy to kick back and lose focus. A diligent person knows the importance of preserving a sense of urgency, and of keeping one’s eye on the goal, and the danger of distractions. He knows to stay busy during the hot and long days of summer where its easy to find an excuse to kick back.

Having lived and served with our precious brothers and sisters from the House Churches in China I have been privileged to witness a generation of believers who are as passionate about the harvest of souls around them now as they were when I first knew them, which for some has been for more than 20 years. I have asked God to give me coals from their altars to make me burn, and then help you to burn too. In fact, why don’t you take a moment to just ask the Lord to touch you with that coal right now. Lord, set me on fire, restore a passion in me for the harvest. Help me to be a wise son!

And help me NOT to be a son that causes shame. While not every field of the world is equally harvestable, much depends on our ability to lift up our eyes and see that the harvest is ripe, and not in the field itself. Jesus’ disciples did not SEE the harvest. Jesus did. This reminder itself should help to be careful. Am I guilty of blaming the harvest in my neighborhood, in my culture, among my colleagues, for not being ripe like those other fields? Beloved, there may well be a harvest out there that you are not seeing! Let’s not be caught sleeping.

“Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.” PS 144:15

This is the last verse, a consummation, of a section of scripture which is filled with tension. PS 140-144 all have in their subtitles, “A Psalm of David”. PS 142 even adds “a prayer when David was in the cave”. They were composed during some of the darkest days of David’s life. Either he was engaged in actual war, or fleeing for his life, or being viciously slandered, even betrayed, or suffering persecution. Two times in the midst of it all he cries out, “my spirit is overwhelmed within me”!! Modern day translation? AGGGHHHH!!!

Any of these things constitute circumstances more difficult than most of us will face in a lifetime; yet they are recorded for us as happening to one man in just a couple of pages in your Bible. In this context, to conclude by saying that he was happy?! I don’t know about you, but this really makes me wonder how?

Thankfully, David does not just make a suggestion. He does not just give us a couple of bright ideas. Fact is, he gets downright specific. So here we go, check out these survival keys:

1. “Lord, I cry out to you.” We’ve all heard of the primordial scream, right? Well, this “crying” is not at all the same. The one who will learn to press through trouble and every kind of conflict has to have this weapon in his arsenal. He knows how to CRY unto the Lord. There is a world of difference in crying about and crying to.
2. “My eyes are upon you.” David did not fix his eyes upon his attack or his attackers. He didn’t look for blame, pity, or an escape. Rather than dwell on his circumstances and surroundings, David teaches us the secret of staying focused completely on the Lord who alone was his comfort, his refuge, and his salvation.
3. “I remember the days of old.” The wise person understands the folly of being fixated on the present. He reaches back to find his anchor in the faithfulness of God who has never left or forsaken in the past. He knows to dig up the wells of his forefathers. He knows to recount over and over the Red Sea crossings of his journey. With every remembrance his confidence grows. Yes, the wise person’s faith is firmly established upon the numerous deliverances and victories of the past.
4. “Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness.” One of the greatest services we can pay to others and to ourselves is to study and recall the nature and character of our God. His power, His patience, His sovereignty, His steadfast love, His mercy. Paul said, “to know Him, and the power of His resurrection”. It is not enough to know what God can do; we must know who it is doing it.
5. “Let my head refuse it.” David knew that much of the battle is either won or lost not in the field, but in the mind. David was being lied to, and threatened, and attacked. If he believed the lies, he would have succumbed. He would have grown weaker and not stronger. If he had attempted to fight Goliath with his brain, he would have reasoned his way to the back of the line, back to “safety”, and back to defeat.
6. “Bring my soul out of trouble.” Our emotions too must be brought under submission. They cannot be suppressed, but they can be managed. When confronted with trials and conflict, we will be paralyzed if we allow fear or depression to sit in the driver’s seat. We do not deny, or ignore our feelings. But we need to tell them to sit in the back, quietly, so as not to dominate the conversation and stay as far away from the wheel as possible!
7. “I will sing a new song to You, O God!” Lastly, David leaves us an example of one who never ceases to praise the Lord. The song does not change His circumstances; it changes him. In praise all the previous six keys are brought together. When he praises, he elevates spirit above reason and feelings. He cries out to the Lord in a song, and as he exalts, his focus naturally turns to the object of his attention rather than on the situation or people which have overwhelmed him. In his song, he recounts the great things God has done. As he worships, his lips declare the goodness, grace, and glory of the God of his salvation.

Although I do not know the origins of the phrase, “I’m not a happy camper”, I can easily imagine where it came from. As someone raised in Vermont, I had many opportunities to put the happy camper theory to the test. Indeed, sometimes camping was fun. The weather cooperated, the equipment did not break, and my fellow campers ground their axes before they came. Some of my best memories come from such vacations.

At other times camping has been a nightmare (I wonder if Robin Williams will ever rent an RV in real life?). I am been visited by bears, angry, frog-stabbing men, black fly onslaughts, and hornets. I have met snowstorms while in shorts and a T-shirt, and had holey tents (not holy tents, mind you) in torrential thunderstorms. I have gotten sick, and have met campers who I am sure had horns under their hats, and a pitch-forks parked in their lean-tos.

Indeed, life is an adventure much like a camping trip. Sometimes the ride is smooth; at other times it is bumpy, even harrowing. Sometimes there is peace; at other times we meet with hardships, conflicts, and adversity. No matter where you happen to pitch your tent, do not forget these seven survival keys that David has laid out in his “Camper’s Guide”. If you do, I am sure you will find yourself earning the most prestigious Boyscout badge given among men. Better than being an Eagle Scout; you can proudly say, “I’m a Happy Camper”.