When I lived with the Simon's in Lousiana, one morning I opened the door to leave my room and found a surprise left by the cat. As I looked down at the floor in the dark hallway, I noticed what appeared to be cat vomit right in the entrance of my doorway. (You must be thinking, “Surely she is not going to tell a story about cat puke!” Hang in there. It’s worth it!) This automatically fired me up even though I had just crawled out of bed. I immediately made up my mind that I was not about to clean it up and I thought through several excuses as to why I should just leave it and step around it until someone else came upon it. Every time I went into and out of my room, I would get a little more aggravated as I stepped around it since I had already had enough run-ins with this cat. As I got ready for work, my conscience would not rest about leaving the mess, because I knew it would be a lie if I pretended like I hadn’t noticed it. The scripture in James 3:17 repeatedly came to mind, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” I finally decided I couldn’t stand it anymore so I got some paper towels to clean it up. On the way back to my room, as I grumbled under my breath something about “cleaning up cat puke,” I turned on the light to see a pile of yellow carpet the cat had torn up (and arranged to look like a vomit!). Talk about making a mountain out of a carpet pile! I couldn’t imagine what God could teach me from this situation, but it became clear to me that my entire reaction was based on what I thought I saw looking into the darkness. As soon as I turned on the light, the truth was revealed and my distorted perception of what I thought I saw coupled with my previous experiences was exposed. When we view our tough circumstances based on the past without an eternal perspective, it is just like looking into the darkness. In John 1:6 –7 it says, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” Without light we can’t see properly. Jesus is our Light according to John 1:4-5, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” If we study God’s Word, we can trust Him to show us perfectly what is before us. In Psalm 18:28 it says, “You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.” And in Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” In 2 Peter 1:19 it says, “And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” Even when things look awful, 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 says, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Get that into your spirit!! According to God’s word, what we see, whether accurate or not, is just temporary anyway!!! Be encouraged, “We live by faith and not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7.
Your sister seeking to be “well-lit,”
Mandy Wakefield
