Monday, August 11, 2014

The darkness configuration

On Friday, I danced with salvation garlands around my neck. But like someone once sang, England swings like a pendulum do...

Just this weekend:

My wife, Mary, and I went to the downtown area for the first time in, well, forever. We had a lovely time on a brutally hot day, walking to the super mall we have in New Orleans called the Riverwalk, having a chocolate milk shake, looking at all the things we cannot buy. Wonderful weekend.

Two were killed in a shooting in my town, last night, and a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old are in critical condition. They were sitting on a front porch when someone in their evil wisdom drove down their street and opened fire.

We had a lovely day of worship Sunday, visitors in with us. Mary and I took one of the grandchildren, Gavin, home with us and listened to his wit and charm the rest of the afternoon.

A man barricaded himself in one of the local hotels near the French Quarter yesterday, shooting a friend twice before killing himself.

Must I continue to frame my point?

Life goes on, they say, but life doesn't have to be filled with such violence, does it?

One cannot look at Facebook these days without being told the ISIS is (are) beheading children in Iraq. We're bombing them in return. We're arming the Kurds in return.

There is unrest in Missouri after an 18-year-old was killed by police, war in Gaza, more cases of Ebola in Nigeria,

But a Super Moon rests over us all, as we enter shark week.

In the Psalms again this morning, I read this: God takes the wind out of Babel pretense, he shoots down the world's power-schemes. God's plan for the world stands up, all his designs are made to last. Blessed is the country with God for God; blessed are the people he's put in his will.

It seems to me that when things are as dark as they seem this morning in a great part of the world, we need to run somewhere and hide. We have but two choices. We can run and hide in the dark. Or we can run and hide in the light.

The world is hiding in the dark.
We, however, have a different destination, those who are in God's will this morning. We are destined for the light.

John told us "The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into the Light. He was in the world, the world was there through him, yet the world didn't even notice."

The choices are clear: dark or light.

Jesus said of this, "I am the world's Light. No one follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in."

Look the world is a messy place, complicated by the sheen of darkness that comes naturally to it. People, humanity as it were, have been stumbling around for eons, darkness covering them like flood waters.

But the light, oh the light. It came... HE came ... and since we've had a choice.

We still do.

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