God bless the inventor of the ‘mute’ button! What a precious gift! As the clamoring voices of darkness ramp up to fever pitch, all it takes is one gentle tap, and like magic, serenity returns, blood pressure readings stabilize, ulcers disappear (feels like), headaches abate, sweet dreams visit once more. Oh sure, anger and hatred and vitriol still exist but the power to limit their intrusion into our lives is at our fingertips (of course, there’s another button, the one that says on/off, but if that is a step too far, the first is a great place to start. Because you’re asking, my humble recommendation, the solution that is working best for me, is the latter.)
Here’s the best part – once the roar of darkness is put in its place, a whole other world comes into focus, ongoing, thriving, peace-filled, joyous, filled with Light. It is a world where evidences of the presence of the Kingdom of Light are brightly shining. Some current US examples: in February this year, spontaneous revival spread out among students at a college in Wilmore, KY; this ‘happening’ continued on several other campuses for weeks. In August, over 4,000 young people were baptized at Pirate’s Cove, CA (on the 50th anniversary of the Jesus People baptisms on that same beach). This month, there are further hundreds of students – at Auburn University in AL and Texas A&M Corpus Christi, TX – experiencing the invasion of the Kingdom of Light, including a spontaneous, late night lake baptism for about 200. This past Sunday, in Arden, NC, nearly 300 people were baptized. And these are just the ones I’ve read about! You see, what God, through His Spirit, is accomplishing, the hearts He is calling to Himself, the lives being transformed by the Light of the Gospel, can scarcely be described in a space this small. Is this the realization of John 14:12-14? Is God still at work? In us? Through us? Is it proof of our being the Light of the World? Are there dark forces at work, hoping we will miss the forever vitality of this unstoppable Kingdom now ours?
What strikes me is how urgent it is for Jesus’ disciples (that’s us, y’all) to stop believing the lies of the Enemy as he tries desperately to persuade us we are weak, useless, too messed up, too depressed, too fat, too old, etc. And how urgent it is to START believing what God now says about us. God says we are who Jesus is! His beloved in whom He is well pleased. PD
