I am at a beautiful place this morning. RuthAnn is attending a teacher’s conference at Cohutta Springs Conference Center in Northern Georgia. As I said, a beautiful place with mountains or at least hills, loaded with trees of every sort. There is also a man-made lake that surrounds the facility. Unfortunately, the weather has been horrendous. The first night there was rain and hurricane force winds. Then yesterday the winds calmed down but there were still periods of heavy rain. But finally, last night after dinner the clouds parted for a while allowing RuthAnn and I to walk the nature path around the lake. It was beautiful.
The woods had the aroma of fresh fallen rain, filled with scents of trees and flowers. But what makes this walk special is that there are rest stops along the way that have Bible verses written and posted near a sheltered bench. Each of the verses declare the glory of God, as does the natural environment they are surrounded with.
As I was looking out at the lake this morning from the exercise room, I started to think that we are surrounded by beauty of God’s creation so often and we are way to busy to see it or acknowledge it. But we certainly find a way to spend our spare time seeing and acknowledging the ugly that is in the world.
Why? Why do we as creations of a loving God live our lives not only in but seeking the dark side of this world. Honestly, this has been a question I have had since the Holy Spirit began His transforming work in my life. I mean, I saw who I was before; a guy who not only sought out the dark side but reveled in it. And with all the prayer and introspection I have done it seems to me that Satan has a way of making what is dark seem not so dark and what is evil seem acceptable and normal.
Maybe an example from my life would help me explain. Here I was living the life of a drug dealer and involved in various sexual relationships but when I looked in the mirror in the morning I just saw a guy who was getting by. I was a good guy, right? I really wasn’t hurting anyone. I truly believed that. Even though I was selling poison and sneaking around with another man’s wife. And the reality was the lower I sunk, the lower I set my standards of what was ok. Satan was making darkness seem almost like light, because I also worked in a soup kitchen and gave money to help those with AIDS. How could a guy who did that be ‘bad’?
The real problem was that Satan had convinced me I was not sinful. He basically convinced me like He has so many that everything I had ever been taught about God is a lie. And it took me years to see that he has been in this business from the very beginning, check this out from the first book in the Bible “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3: 1-4) From the very beginning Satan has tried to convince us that God is the liar not him and unfortunately many of us have believed him.
And the problem is now that it has permeated our whole society. I left a good paying job because I was required to lie, to ‘tow the company line’. When I was walking in darkness, I had no problem with this. But as I was “called out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9) I could no longer do so. And not only that but I began to see the wonder of God’s love and His world. It was and is not the ugly place so many of us are convinced by media and society that it is.
So, I guess for me it comes down to, “Who do I, who do you, believe?” We can continue to be those of whom Jesus says this, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44) Or we can follow Him who declared Himself, “… “am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” (John 14:6) I know my answer and because I do I choose not to see ugly. No, I do not bury my head in the sand, but today I seek the light.
Being in a place like we are today, helps to remind me of the world our God intended for us. But later today we head home and back to the world in which darkness is around every corner but now I am convinced it is our job to bring light to those who live in those dark places. To show our God is not the liar, He is the way and the truth and the light.
Blessings John
4/24/18
