"How is the gold become dim." (Lam. 4.1)
It sounds within me today, not as a statement but as a question..."what happened?"
Our world today is worse than yesterday.
All around the world what we thought we had firmly built crumbles before our eyes.
When the pilgrim settlers arrived in North America they were seeking "freedom."
Freedom to them meant unimpeded possibility to worship and obey God -
even if, in the lapse of the first winter, it were paid for in the deaths of forty five of one hundred and two settlers who stepped on their land of promise.
Those who inhabit the same land almost four hundred years later
give centrality to the word Freedom,
but the meaning has changed.
Freedom now means an unimpeded road to the fulfillment of all my desires.
This is true throughout the world.
The sense of there being One who demands obedience has been replaced
with the notion that all things exist only for my satisfaction.
We seem to be repeating the history of Eden, when Adam chose freedom from obedience to God
and sought for his own independent realm of determination.
But God is the Creator of all things, there can be no freedom outside of Him.
We are free only with the freedom God bestows.
The unfettered thrust for personal freedom finally finds itself
confronted with men whose government promises Everything.
But this all-inclusive promise trails behind it Total Control,
and so ultimately, paradoxically, in seeking freedom all freedom is lost.
Instead of freedom to obey God
we have the inescapable obligation to obey man's strictures.
Can we as sons of God lift our eyes beyond all that surrounds us?
Can we shut out the earthly voices?
When the verse says, "Let God be true and every man a liar," (Rom. 3.4)
can we rid ourselves of every other source of knowledge,
and look to Him alone for our enlightenment?
Now, now, now is the time:
to lift our eyes from earthly things to Heavenly things,
to change the world of earthly existence for a spiritual realm,
to walk in the Light of Life.
What a world opens when we leave our love of earthly existence
and see with clearer vision The World of God.
AMEN to shutting out all the earthly voices and being DONE with every other source of knowledge. Let us seek to know Him as our source of everything. Christ our Wisdom! Christ our Life!
ReplyDeleteAmen and Amen!
ReplyDeleteIt has always been the time to look to heaven instead of earth for the power we need to live and to be of useful service to the Lord during our brief time here, and if that indeed happens, today is a better day than yesterday for the Church in America. Today I am rejoicing with my Brothers and Sisters in the Lord of color and also women who have historically been denied representation and the opportunity to engage in a system that has made decisions for them and who have lived in fear and want for far too long. We need to ask these people if yesterday was better than today! I am also rejoicing that the system of government under which I live has proven itself stable and able come back from the brink of autocracy under a malicious megalomaniac. For these reasons, I am rejoicing today. The culture is what it is and Christians are not called to change it because it is not only unimportant, but is a waste of time and energy. Instead we are called to shine God's light so brightly within ourselves so that others may see it and glorify God. This is our one and only calling.
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