What is light other than the absence of darkness? Why is light…perhaps that is a better question. It seems that if as the evolutionists believe-the earth is millions of years old, then through adaptation and survival of the fittest we would have developed an ability to see as clearly in the absence of the sun as we do in the presence of the same.

It is not to be and nor will it ever be the case that man will in time develop this nocturnal ability. Why? Light may be our greatest ally and most trusted confidante, exposing the dangers and peril of life without it. Darkness however is an altogether different animal, inciting within us the most primal of fears. Why…what causes this reaction? Darkness harms not the subjects cloaked in its shadow. Darkness is not a thing to be felt or touched…Darkness is nothing more than the absence of light.

It is not the darkness man fears but rather what lurks in the darkness. The robbers and the thieves. When the sun sets and darkness falls the unscrupulous fellow begins his day. Why must they wait for nightfall for a dishonest days work? The answer is simple…darkness rather than light they have befriended. A friend sticks closer than a brother and night conceals their crimes. The unscrupulous fellow cannot work in the light for the light will surely discover his deeds.

What then…why then did God split our days between the darkness and the light? Would it not have been better to live in constant light? Maybe…just maybe God is making every attempt at revealing himself to his subjects. Teaching us to yearn for light by causing us to know the darkness, fearing the thing that lurks there. Perhaps it is that God was demonstrating for us the effects of a world that was bound to fall. Helping us to understand how truly important it is live in light while despising the darkness.

The day itself is a model of sorts that we in our limited understanding can observe with our eyes and perceive that which is spiritual. For the man who has lived in darkness has seen a great light and now chooses to live by the latter. If the light that is in you is darkness how great is that darkness, that is the question we all must answer, and to all the answer is the same…

Mathew 4:16

…”the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”

HIS NAME IS ABOVE ALL NAMES, IT IS THE ONLY NAME UNDER HEAVEN BY WHICH MEN MUST BE SAVED…HIS NAME IS EMANUEL- GOD WITH US. IT IS JESUS THE CHRIST.

 

 

The days are long and the hours even longer. Confusion reigns as it always has and the nights are met without slumber. What is this work that God is doing and why must I wait for the answer. Time is limited and life is a fleeting thing, like a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow…waiting is not an option.

Yet still the command is given: “wait upon the Lord”- “be still and know that I am God.”

Why? I ask. I know the work and how to do it. I respond with the words of Isaiah “Here am I send me.” words that are again met with silence. Silence is not deafening it is terrifying. Why…Why… has God gone silent? Surely there is a reason. A test perhaps? or maybe he is busy at work responding to the countless other requests being hurled toward the heavens in volleys that have no aim.

The amateur knows not how to pray…he only knows that he should. Prayer itself must be met with great preparation. We are going into the house of the Lord and we must guard our steps. Treading carefully and with all caution knowing that should we overstep our bounds, He may give us exactly the thing we have asked of Him…and this to our own demise. God waits with great anticipation for the man of God to come and when we have studied thoroughly the matter before us, we shall know of what to ask and how to ask of it. It will be the thing that in the end brings to our Lord the greatest glory. Often times however the thing we come to know of is not the thing we desire ourselves and so it is through prayer that God will give us the desires we lack…the desires of our heart.

I am no amateur when it comes to prayer. I have studied well the matter before me and still there is silence. Perhaps it is my sin that stays his words from coming forth. I examine myself, making every effort to know the cause of his silence that I may again hear that still small voice that once upon a time reverberated in my soul like a Lions roar.

Maybe I have grown so accustomed to his presence that I now have taken it for granted. Like an old married couple who barely acknowledge the existence of one another. A bride who in her golden years presumes her spouse will always be around. A husband who wakes to the terrifying silence of a marriage gone cold, or worse still…a bride lacking a groom.

The banquet is off…the celebration is over…we panic with the sure knowledge that something is amiss. In a moment of clarity God in his grace grants us access, if only for a moment, to the infinite knowledge he possesses about us. Unfolding before us and projected in ways that Hollywood could never reproduce is the life we have lived. We watch as we come into this world, born once and then again. We watch as we take our turn down the aisles of matrimony. Joining ourselves to another that we may become one flesh. Engrossed in our own stories and sitting on the edge of ours seats as if we didn’t already know the outcome. Suddenly we begin to notice the affection we once had for the bridegroom has all but disappeared. The joy that lit our eyes with wonder has turned instead to sadness as we watch the transaction unfold. The exchange is taking place and we scream from the depths of our soul the warnings we failed to heed. DONT DO IT, THE COST IS TOO HIGH! It is no use, the person you are watching is not real. No, it is only a vision of the past. A past that you cannot change. The vision ends and you find yourself hunched over in your seat…inconsolable.

Suddenly you begin to feel that gentle wind blow across your cheeks. You rise with anticipation waiting expectantly to hear that still small voice. As quickly as you rise you fall, in humble submission. You plead for his mercy as he motions you near, and in that still small voice he whispers…”my steadfast love endures forever.”

You are keenly aware of your trespass now…overtaken by guilt. Knowing you have committed the most scandalous act of adultery in human history. You left the bosom of your creator that you might be joined to the world. What have I done? The guilt is now too great to bear and again you fall to the ground inconsolable. This momentary affliction is interrupted by an explosion of light that lets loose an array of color and sound. You hear the savior say “thy strength indeed is small, child of weakness watch and pray, find in me thine all in all.”

The secret is out and silence has been answered. The cause was not that you knew not how to pray…the cause was that you knew not how to stay. Psalms 119

 

 

 

Watching the world erupt at the thought of a Trump Presidency has been quite humorous to me the last few days. What a sad testimony for a generation of people who will now forever be known by their entitlement attitudes. Perhaps it is official now, we have already witnessed the greatest generation so it would make sense then for us to identify and label the worst of generations. But this post in actuality has nothing to do with them, I am simply just using them to paint a bleak picture of what the future holds for us as a result of their ignorance. I have been quite disgusted by the slogan that this mob movement has adopted-“LOVE TRUMPS HATE.” It would be different if I actually thought they believed it. Sadly I am unable to give them credit for such a noble thing as their actions are dictating otherwise.

I wonder how many opportunities this lost generation have had to demonstrate in practice what they chant on the street. For the many objections I have had about Hillary Clinton, one thing that I respect about her is that she stood by her husband when his acts of infidelity were exposed to the world and became fodder for every late night talk show in America. While I do not know her motivation for standing by him I would like to assume that it was because of her Love for him. Having said that it’s time now to move on to the meat of the matter.

The bible talks at length about love…in fact the bible even has what’s known as the love chapter. Here is just a snippet from 1 Corinthians 13

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

But perhaps it is more easily summed up in the words of Christ himself when asked “what is the greatest commandment,”  Jesus replied “Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, soul, and mind and the second is liken to it, love thy neighbor as thyself.” Yet, how much more so does Christ even elevate the standard for love when it comes to our spouses? To love our wives as Christ hath loved the church…that he laid down his life for it. Yes, the standard is set high, but the standard was in keeping with His own demonstration for us. Whereas in Romans the scriptures tell us that “God hath demonstrated his own love for us that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

This is a stinging reminder that while 1 Corinthians 13 tells us what love is perhaps we don’t quite understand what that looks like in practice. If one were to take a long hard look at the what this chapter actually says we must then come to the realization that these words are spoken in light of a backdrop that opposes such behavior. We are inherently sinful and because of that our natural inclination when tested in so many areas is to do the exact opposite of what Paul and for that matter Christ hath told us to do. Therefore love does not come easily. It is hard work and we must make a practice of it and we must do so in defiance of our sinful nature, refusing to buckle under the weight of our frustrations or even hate. It is hard work to love sometimes.

Think about your children and how they can literally drive you to the point of Insanity at times…yet again we are told not to exasperate them, but instead to be patient. Think about your spouse and how sometimes we can get on one another’s last nerve, yet again I am asked if necessary to lay down my life for her. What does that mean exactly? Does it mean that I am to take a bullet for her, jump in front of a moving truck, or does it mean something even more? I submit to you that it means even more. It means that in every case where I see my wife struggling-that I as the spiritual leader in my home am to immediately take my place in the gap and do all that I possibly can to ease her discomfort. It means that I am to shoulder the load and if need be…to do it alone.

I have said all of this for the simple fact that LOVE has sadly become a cliché in our society. It sounds good to say “LOVE TRUMPS HATE,” but it is an entirely different story when we are asked to put our money where our mouth is.

Today is my wife’s Birthday and I must admit that she is an amazing woman who for the most part has shown me what it means to Love. Sadly I cannot say that I have done the job as well as her. I cannot even begin to list off the number of times that she has shown me patience when she should have shown disdain, or the number of times she has shown me kindness when she should have shown hate, or the number of times she has shown gratitude for the little I am able to provide instead of envy the things I cannot, the number of times that she has been right about a matter but instead of boasting she held her tongue, the number of times she has lifted the hearts and spirits of others that I have been quick to condemn; the number of sacrifices she has made for our little big family, never seeking fulfillment of her own; or the number of wrongs that I committed against her that she has extended forgiveness. YES, my wife is a picture of proverbs 31. If you ask her, she will deny it and likely begin to list off the many ways she has failed. I will simply chalk that up to humility. My wife is fiercely protective of her family, trusting always in the Lords provision, hoping against all hope and persevering in all her struggles, knowing that in the end she will reap her rewards.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LORI-WE LOVE YOU.

 

I am a man, and a man’s job is to fix things. It becomes especially important to fix the broken when a man lacks resources or the ability to replace the broken. That is the easy answer, to replace what is broken. Sometimes however the broken things cannot be replaced…they must be fixed. How frustrating it is when a thing is broken and a man knows not how to fix it. How frustrating it is when neither YouTube nor Google have the answers. We must swim alone in this sea of brokenness as we blindly grasp for the answers.

From one generation to the next we have taught our children that fixing a thing is sometimes too costly and far too demanding of our time. We have taught them that discarding the broken is often times more beneficial to us than taking the time to salvage and to mend. We have failed in teaching our children to embrace the broken. The broken is ugly, the broken is useless and unnecessary, the broken is of no value to us, the broken is a waste of time. Replace…Replace…Replace is our motto.

How unfortunate it is that we have allowed this mentality to creep into our homes and our churches while never realizing the full impact of its consequences. Man creates as in the likeness of his own Creator. The value of man’s creations pales in comparison to the value of HIS. The result is that we can without consequence discard and start again. Oh, but the greatest of all creation was man himself. Our creator painted for himself such an exquisite masterpiece so full of vibrancy and color. With wonder in HIS own eyes he looks longingly into his creation while paying attention to every intimate detail, to every brushstroke and to every shade…he looks with penetrating and wonder filled eyes into the depths of every man’s soul to examine it’s beauty.

We say to ourselves “if he only knew the truth,” the masterpiece He created has been corrupted. The colors have all now faded to black, the brushstrokes and the shade are no longer distinguishable…we are ruined and destined for the same fate that befalls every broken thing…That once priceless piece of art that the master once looked upon as his most prized possession will forever be discarded, laid aside in order that He may start again. Our thoughts will take us to that dreadful place where the only visitor we have is the past, the what ifs and the could have beens. We wonder does he ever think of us? Does He remember me? The wonderful times we shared together? Does he remember how as a child we would crawl up into the security of his bosom and rest our weary heads upon his shoulders, shoulders that have already borne the weight of so much, yet somehow still retained enough strength to bear the weight of our sorrows as well…Does he remember?

…and this is the glory of the Gospel…it is the greatest scandal in the history of mankind. The love of God manifested upon the Cross of Calvary where his only son…his perfect son would soon be crushed for our iniquity. God how can it be that you have been broken that we may be healed? This is not how it is supposed to work. It goes against the natural order of things…we should have been discarded, tossed away and counted as worthless. Instead we have been healed, mended, repaired and put back into service. Why? How?

Christians let us remember the broken…let us always remember the broken, and let us do our part to mimic the masters love for his creation. If we are going to fix, we first must love. I have learned much about brokenness in the life of my adopted son. I likewise have learned much about me and even more so about the master. But what I have learned the most is that he loves to fix the broken and rather than discard and walk away he instead invites the broken and beckons them to come sit at his table and sup with him. How contrary is this to our modern world…embracing the broken. I have learned that most beautiful of all things is the broken thing repaired. Now I have been granted access to sit at the front and witness as a little broken boy puts his life in the masters hands, and I will watch in wonder as he puts this little boy back together again.