Here She Comes

I received this little illustration several years ago at the funeral of my dear friend, Mark Kram. It has always meant a lot to Pattie and I. We put it in the program of my Mother-in-law's funeral.

I was standing upon the seashore; a ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. And someone at my side says, “There, she’s gone.”

Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and span as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her; and just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There, she’s gone,” there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”. . .

. . . And that is dying for those who trust in Jesus Christ’s work on the cross for their salvation.

Labels, Lenses and Light!

In Luke 11, Jesus makes an interesting statement. “See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.” How can “light” be “darkness?” A little background: Jesus just cast out a demon from a man. Everyone is amazed yet some claim He is using the power of Satan to cast out Satan in order to deceive people. Jesus points out the folly of such thinking yet this still creates doubt in people’s minds. And, even though they had just witnessed a miracle that only God could do, they ask for another sign. Jesus refuses to do tricks and says there will be only one other sign given: the sign of Jonah. Jonah was three days in the belly of the fish and then was found alive. So, too, Jesus will be three days in the grave and then will be found alive. Then He begins to warn them about missing what they are seeing. He says others, such as the Queen of Sheba and the people of Nineveh, believed and repented with far less proof. Then He makes the statement, “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness.” How we see things determines the health of our lives. Our perceptions influence our actions. The way we think defines what type of people we are. So He says, “Make sure that the light you are following (your perceptions, thinking, etc.) is truly light and not darkness that will eventually lead you to destruction.”

We all look at life and the world through lenses. The more lenses we have,the more skewed our perceptions become. Lets picture this as sunglasses. The more layers, the darker our shades become and the more apt we are to miss what the light is trying to show us. We are in somewhat of a trap. The way we see things determines the kind of people we are and the kind of people we are determines the way we see things. It is only through the power of the Gospel and the truth of the Word of God that we are set free from this cycle and our eyes are opened to new realities and our lives transformed.

Lenses are simply any label we use to define ourselves. The problem with labels is that we tend to take on the characteristics and viewpoints of that label - good and bad. Any label that we take on ourselves becomes a layer over our eyes and can keep us from seeing life through God's eyes and His truth. Here are some of the labels that have defined me: white, American, male, non-denominational (I shed myself from the Baptist label only to take on this label,) conservative, Republican, middle class. I have more but these are a few. It is clear that Jesus wants to shed us of all these labels or lenses that have left us skewed, oppressed and enslaved and wants us to see life through only one lens - that of Jesus Christ!
Galatians 3:26-28 says, "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Colossians 3:9-11, "Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all."
Are you missing what the Light is trying to show you? Are you viewing life through the lens of Jesus Christ or through others labels that are attached to you? “See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.”