Down where we live it doesn’t snow much.  When it does, we love it, well, most of us.  The kids hope with the snow comes a snow day away from school.  Most folks never lose their wonder at snow’s beauty and its nature of covering the most unsightly sights.  Even a junkyard takes on a beauty not its own when snow falls and covers the old cars.  Snow! Snow is a transformer of the ugly to the beautiful.

Lewis Carroll had Alice in “Through the Looking Glass” describe snow to her kitty this way.

“Do you hear the snow against the windowpanes, Kitty?  How nice and soft it sounds!  Just as if someone was kissing the window all over outside.  I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, and that it kisses them so gently?  And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ’Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.’  And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green, and dance about – whenever the wind blows – oh, that’s very pretty!” cried Alice, dropping the ball of worsted to clap her hands.  “And I do so wish it was true!  I’m sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown.”

In my last post I outlined how through Christ we bask in the light of God and become the avenue of redemption for God on this old earth.  Our mission is to let the light of Christ reflect from our lives so that others will follow.  In doing so we are preparing for the day when “the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it” (Rev 21:26  Our primary purpose is to live and build the glory and honor for God on that day.  This drives our worship, mission, and life.

But we take our Light for granted WAY to often.  It’s tempting to focus on the prize at the expense of our mission to build the glory and honor for God. One of the most convicting songs written and performed by the late Keith Green:

The world is sleeping in the dark,

That the church can’t fight, cause it’s asleep in the light,

How can you be so dead, when you’ve been so well fed,

Jesus rose from the grave, and you, you can’t even get out of bed,

Oh, Jesus rose from the dead, come on, get out of your bed.

What a rallying cry for us.  We are blessed with the comfort of eternal life and guidance from God through the Spirit.  Put it to work.

You lied to me!  Perhaps one of the harshest sentences in any language is that one.  No one wants to be lied to, deceived, tricked or otherwise diminished by another.  The other day Rhoda and I were waiting for my daughter at her house when we noticed a hummingbird poised at my granddaughter’s basketball goal.  The goal is bright red and the little bird thought it had arrived at a great big red flower.  After a moment it was gone – after figuring out it was not a real flower.  It was one of those “ if only I had a camera” times.

Satan grows those great big red flowers for deceiving human hearts.  “…your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour…”. (I Peter 5:8 TNV).  He can also transform himself to make the real bad look real good.  “…for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light”. (2 Cor. 11:14 TNV).  Elizabeth Browning brilliantly depicted Satan’s nefarious ways in her poem, “Aurora Leigh”, when she wrote, “the Devil’s most devilish when respectable”.

How much trouble will Satan take to try to deceive us “hummingbirds”?  Whatever it takes. He only quits trying when we draw close to God.  When we stay close to the cross, he can’t come there. But, we must be ever vigilant.  In the book of Revelation, chapter 2, John says that some folks simply do not know the depths of  Satan. Yes, he is real and yes he wants “hummingbirds” to fall for the fake great big red flower.  He desires all to follow him, not God.

Watch our for the great big red flowers!  Several years ago I wrote a poem and I think it speaks to the issue of not being on guard against the wiles of Satan. In this case it ends tragically as it always will when one becomes a friend of Satan.

DONKEY FLATS

Two men met where two roads cross.

One man was old and one was young.

Where to, young sir?

Where do you go?

To Donkey Flats, sir.

Why there young man?

Men only go there when all is lost.

All is lost sir and I am lost too.

Everything is lost that I held dear.

Cards, drinking and women

Took wife, children and home.

So I’m going to Donkey Flats sir.

And I won’t be coming back.

We often describe our Christian life as a daily walk, which is an enduring example of how we dedicate every moment of every day to Christ. The good news is we walk in the light near to God which gives a guiding light and illuminates a Spiritual path to the comfort of eternal life.  To discover the true depth of this good news we need to focus on things to come. In Revelation the new heaven and the new earth are described by John:

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”….And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.  Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Revelation 21:1, 21:3, 21:23-27 (TNIV)

For believers it’s almost overwhelming to think of the day we can walk in the light of the Lord.  BUT WE ALREADY ARE!

One day long ago, my buddy and I decided to drive his old car across a dry creek bed. A fun idea turned out to be a bad idea.  Half way over, we sunk deep in the gravel.  Everything we tried to get unstuck did not work.  Idea after idea failed.  Our “horse” was stuck, for sure and for certain.  Evening was coming on and our options were walking home or going to someone’s house and calling home.  In those days there were no cell phones.  Both plans were not acceptable to a couple of enterprising fellows like us.  Either option spelled defeat.  Of course, we were, in fact, completely defeated.  By now my mom, who kept close tabs on me, even though I considered that not needful, had dispatched my dad to check on the whereabouts of her number one and only son.  And there he was, in his company car, coming over the hill with the radio antenna whipping in the wind.  My hero, then and now, and always will be.  “What are you boys doing,” he asked. We replied as manly as we could,  “We’ve tried everything and we can’t get unstuck.”  He didn’t laugh or even chastise us for what we had done as I recall.  He had a way of teaching without saying one word.  He simply said, “Take some air out of the tires”.  We did and Ronny drove out easily.  Ronny and I learned a big lesson that day, and it was more than how to get a stuck car out of a creek.

Hummingbirds regularly come to our feeder outside the window to partake of the “goodie juice” we provide.  The feeder can be seen by Rhoda and me from our respective vantage points.  We alert each other as visitors arrive, usually unexpectedly, and they leave almost the same way.  One must be on one’s toes to see them, for hummingbirds don’t stay long.

We have noticed an interesting thing about hummingbirds.  When they approach the feeder and if a wasp is there, they don’t land, or if they do and see a wasp they quickly fly away.  Wasps like hummingbird feeders too and apparently like to sting the hummingbirds, or at least the hummingbirds think they do.  When no wasps are at the feeder, the birds land and drink away.  At this very moment, a hummingbird has come for its morning refreshment and refreshed itself.  Why did it stay?  Because there was no wasp there, it had no fear at the feeder!  The hummingbirds have a rule – wasp at the feeder – fly away – wasp not at the feeder – stay and enjoy the gift of the feeder.

Why can’t people be as wise as the hummingbirds?  Some not only don’t fly , in our case, don’t run from an obvious danger.  They fall for Satan’s overtures and often do not see the spider until they’re caught firmly in the web.  Shakespeare said in his great play, The Merchant of Venice, “There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on its outward parts”.  If you have read my other works you know that I am a poet and like to use my poems to illustrate a point.  I would like to take that opportunity again in this essay and include a poem I wrote some time ago which I think is germane to today’s topic.

POKER MAN

Why do you condemn this, that’s in?

Why do you maintain it’s a sin?

Why do you stand so hard

Against a little game of cards?

You can’t prove it’s wrong to me

For I’ve closed my eyes and cannot see

That something is amiss

And I can’t hear the serpent’s hiss.