new church life : january / february 2017
world : he that follows Me shall not walk in darkness , but shall have the light of life .” ( John 8:12 )
He brought that light into the world – and again in His Second Coming – because of the darkness enveloping the world : “ And this is the condemnation : that light is come into the world , and men loved darkness rather than the light , because their deeds were evil . For everyone that does evil hates the light , neither comes to the light , lest his deeds should be reproved . But he that does truth comes to the light , that his deeds may be made manifest , that they are wrought in God .” ( John 3:19-21 )
That is the light we are to carry forward as a beacon for the world : “ Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works , and glorify your Father who is in heaven .” ( Matthew 5:16 )
( BMH ) diving into life
I began reading an old book that had been gathering dust on my shelf for decades : Wind , Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint Exupéry ( 1900-1944 ), who also wrote The Little Prince .
He was an aviation pioneer who flew a postal route from France to various places in Africa and elsewhere at a time when planes had few instruments and pilots depended upon the stars , cloud formations , and whatever they could see of features on the ground for guidance . But much of his flying was over water and vast deserts , including the Sahara , so there was often nothing below to help him find his way . ( He disappeared on a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean for the Free French Air Force in 1944 .)
This sentence caught my eye : “ The machine which at first blush seems a means of isolating man from the great problems of nature , actually plunges him more deeply into them .” The point was that being up in a plane did not lessen his attention to the land below , but actually increased it – which struck me as a great metaphor for what that mental “ machine ” we call religion does .
Prayer , studying doctrine and meditating on the Word may seem “ at first blush ” to be a way of escaping the problems of daily life – the real problems of the real world , as we tend to see them . But spiritual thought actually “ plunges us more deeply into them .”
When we “ mount up with wings like eagles ” ( Isaiah 40:31 ) and become involved in the spiritual dimension of life , the real and eternal significance of the natural problems we must deal with is seen more clearly . It is then that we gain the higher perspective and wisdom we need to better navigate our way through our life on earth .
( WEO )
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