Shadows

Once again God took my post in a direction I did not expect.  I tried really hard to write a great post about busy signals.  Maybe next week. See if you are one of the ones who needs to hear this instead.

Shadows

Thy word [is] a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. Psalms 119:105

My dog does not have the same sense of night and day that I do. If the urge strikes him to go out it is in my best interest to oblige. His Indian name is He-who-must-not-be-ignored. I don’t worry about being out with him after dark, because he can go from zero to ferocious in 2.6 seconds if he thinks I am being threatened. One night we were walking through the complex in the moonlight and I saw something strange on the ground. I reached to do pick it up and see what it was. It was actually just a shadow. It looked solid and real, but it was an illusion. 

One dark and stormy night when we were kids, the electricity went out. We hung out in the living room together.  We made popcorn in the fireplace (and scorched it). Dad told silly stories that he made up as he went along. We hung up a sheet between the living room and kitchen and put some big candles behind the sheet with us. Then we did a shadow play which our parents said was fantastic.

 Petra had a song that said,

Sometimes a shadow, dark and cold, falls like a mist across the road

But be encouraged by the sight. Where there’s a shadow there’s a light.  

In both of these cases the shadow was cast by the light from the moon or the candles.

                How many times does there seem to be a threat to our spiritual well being, our safety or our joy. Yesterday the threat to my joy was that I did not know how God was going to meet a need that I had. Fortunately he knew exactly how He was going to meet it. As real as my anxiety seemed it has melted away in the light of his truth.

Jesus is called the light. John 1 says  “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 

And the light shines in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” One of the promises of Jesus coming was in Isaiah 9:2. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. And in John 8, Jesus tells us,  Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Let Jesus light cast out the shadows in your life. Then be the light that is set on a hill that all men may see.

 

Stars

This was not the post I was planning on tonight but apparently it is the one God was planning on. . Are you feeling insignificant today. Stop it and read on!

Stars

When  I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. Psalms 8:3-5

With the weather in the brief span of time that passes for spring in West Texas, I am spending more time outside. I love to walk outside or lay on the grass and look up at the stars. Stars are just cool. They are beautiful and powerful and draw our attention in an almost hypnotic way. My children could spout lots of cool scientific facts about stars and how big they are, how far away they are and how long it takes the light from them to reach our eyes, but I am not going to put those numbers here.  If you want them you can look them up or call my children.

Louis Giglio has an amazing video on the web that talks about the relative sizes and distances of different stars I am blown away when I watch it.  The thing I come away with is awe at the power and majesty of God. God keeps galaxies with vast numbers of stars in perfect alignment, and yet we are fearful that he doesn’t have the power to answer our prayer. We may go to the other extreme and say that he is too busy or we are too insignificant.  The reality is that neither of these things is true. The psalmist has such a beautiful expression of this.  Read it again.

 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. Psalms 8:3-5. Psalms 147:4 says He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name. Psalm 19:1 says, the heavens declare the glory of God.  The writer goes on to describe how God made a tent for the sun like a bridegroom coming out of its chamber.

We are the crowning accomplishment of this creator. It was for us that he sacrificed the one most precious to Him. He wrapped his power, so great it can keep billions of stars and galaxies operating, in humility and weakness for us. How dare we allow the enemy to make us feel insignificant! He has called us to be his children and invited us to share eternity with him. Take him at this word.