I am caught up with this refrain from Asaph in Psalm 78:33. The children of Israel's 40-year trek through wilderness country was a direct judgment on the people He loved, meant to purify a nation that had been delivered from Egypt... but not from Egypt's gods.

I must stop short of being too harsh on Israel. Perhaps you, reader, must be likewise cautious. A lot of our lives too have been spent in futile wanderings as we decided whether or not Jesus really should be Lord of our lives. God in mercy has had us on a fast track going nowhere recognizable.

It has been nearly 20 years now since I left the little Christian school in Kentucky to find a "real" job with real money in Chicago. Surely my family would be happier, I reasoned. They had suffered along with me living in a trailer and in clean but low-level apartments. Church members pitied us and offered us pairs of shoes, medical assistance, even a car.

But I could be a beggar no more, I said. Off to the big city, for the "normal" life. But soon after the move, my grown children went back to the land we all loved. They had not been impressed by the sudden influx of cash and typical American living.

As for me, left on the treadmill, the refrain was real. Big city school systems are studies in futility. In my case the years of fear were caused by not knowing when a student might retaliate for being disciplined. My car was damaged by thieves twice. I was attacked by a member of the gay community, but escaped his evil hands. There is a twitching in the pit of my stomach to this very day when I approach my work, not knowing what sort of strangeness I am going to encounter.

May God forgive me for complaining of my earlier lot, when I had classrooms of 5-7 students, plenty of work to do with the Lord, paid mission trips in the summer. May he still use me in my latter days .

I found that normal is not spiritual. More money is not always more blessing. Public Schools with all their talk are simply not doing what the private Christian schools are.

I remember then, and see even now, the good side of my decision. Somehow it was right in the midst of the wrongness. It served as a purging influence. I received an education on the West Side of Chicago that the laid-back existence in suburban Cincinnati could not afford. God must be judge.

I think often these days, and in every context, of persons in North Korea who might be in a situation like mine, and of course it is difficult to compare. Surely the futility and the fear are present. But not because of bad choices.

North Korea is being judged for its idolatry, the blasphemous state of affairs brought upon it by its government. But many of its ignorant "innocent" citizens are victims of someone else's bad choices.

How futile it is to work incredibly long hours and have nothing but poverty and hunger to show for it at the end of the day.

How fearful to know that the neighbors, and even one's own family, are listening to all one says, and will report to the goverment any unusual communications. How does one know this? Because the one who is afraid would do the very same thing.

Oh that the days of futility, the years of fear, will be cut short soon. Oh for a useful life!

Oh for a life that glorifies God!

Oh for evenings spent in rejoicing over the gain accomplished that day.

Oh for a New Year's Day upon which one can reflect back on the peace of God that ruled the heart and the land.