As We Begin...

I have succumbed to the pressures of our modern day culture and now joined the world of blogging… what is next?

I’m not exactly sure what I want this blog to be. Maybe a rambling of my thoughts. Maybe the musings of my soul (as the title would suggest). Maybe the ongoing dichotomy of living life as a follower of Christ in a world that expects perfection from such people but rarely lives any of that in any area of their lives. Who knows?

But here we go…

This morning the air is crisp and autumn is definitely coming if not already here. The sun shimmers through the trees casting alternating shadows and light on the ground below. Patches of light and dark live side by side, much like real life.

The news says that vaccinations for the flu virus are limited and some will be prosecuted for taking the virus if they “truly don’t need it.” Where were these folks last year when there were more vaccine than demand and people were begged to get shots and didn’t. Funny, we humans. We always seem to want what someone says we can’t have. Light and dark, living side by side. We create want by restricting access. We have plenty, but refuse to share. The contradictions are stupefying.

But what about this light and dark living side by side? What about the light and dark that lives within the heart of every human? Paul talks about it as the fight between good and evil and I would say that he is right. There is this inner compass that we all seem to have – that feeling of "rightness" or "wrongness" and it generally guides our thinking and, more importantly, our actions – or at least it should.

Its tough to live in a world with so many opportunities for both good and evil; for pleasure and pain; for love and loss. But then again, who would want to live in a world absent from those realities. Their mere presence and antithesis allows us to give meaning to its opposite.

Despite my deepest longings for goodness and holiness (which, btw, are not the same thing) I sense the deeper pull of darkness always within me. It is a poison of my soul which I know will not be delivered till that day of total redemption and sanctification – that day when we will be made like Him – but when will that day come? It is what Paul refers to as "his thorn in the flesh." Some of us have trees in the flesh, not merely thorns!

We strive for the light to shine greater than the darkness; for the goodness of Truth to be revealed greater than the lies of the darkness. We bring our thoughts and try to make them captive to the obedience of the Light even when our feelings betray our good sense and scream for something more; something other than what is light. It is the battle that all spiritual beings have waged since the beginning of time and it is one that we will continue to fight I am sure.

My prayer for you and I this day is that we might seek to walk in the light that we have been given, however small that might be, and seek to increase that light by drawing closer to the One in whom there is no darkness at all – Jesus the Christ.