Heart Tracks - The Hamster Within

     Writer Patrick Morely tells the story of the time his daughter's pet hamster, Jesse, had crawled through a crack at the bottom of their fireplace and fallen deep into the space behind it.  There was absolutely no way that the hamster could bring itself back out.  As Morely says, "She was doomed to die.  We all knew it, but she didn't."  The hamster, oblivious to her fate just crawled about in the darkness, exploring, "carefree and unaware of the slow, lingering death awaiting her."  The family was in deep pain, but Jesse had no idea there was even a problem.  Morley went to bed, praying that the Father would show him how he might rescue her.
    The next morning, Morely awoke, and went straight to the room behind the fireplace.  With a hammer, he began to break through the paint covered drywall.  After making a hole large enough to reach through, he shined a flashlight into the dark place.  Immediately he saw Jesse and "quickly grabbed her before she scurried from the light, retreating back into the shadows.  She had been in the darkness long enough."
    Morely then used this experience to relate it to God's way with us.  Because of sin, we are born into the darkness, and the darkness is death, leading us ever onward to an eternity in its grip.  Like Jesse, we have no idea of our extreme soul danger.  We move about, "exploring," experiencing, living what we call life.  We are in desperate need of rescue, but we have absolutely no way of getting ourselves out.  We are trapped behind walls we cannot free ourselves from, and the Father, in His deep pain and anguish, broke through that "wall" with the giving of Jesus Christ, through His life, death on a cross, and His conquering of death with His resurrection life.  Yet, when He breaks through, our initial inclination is not to come to the light, but to run from it.  Like Jesse, we fear the light, and seek to draw back to the shadows.  As Morely writes, "God has to reach down and draw us up."  That's the only way out for the hamster, and for you and I.  Has this light come to you, and if so, do you draw back from it, or laid hold of by it?
   We all have our "inner hamster."  Even if we have had the joy of being "found" by Him, there can remain in our hearts, a great deal of the character of the hamster, avoiding the light, finding comfort in the shadows.  It seems safer there.  It seems "right" there.  we can "hide" from the things and issues we don't want to face, we can hide from His face.  Yet, as His word tells us, the end is death.  Wherever you are, the light of Christ pursues you.  That light will clash with the darkness, the shadowland we seek to stay in.  Will you draw back, or will you walk into the hand, and heart, of He who grieves over you?  Jesus says in John 12:46, "I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in Me should stay in darkness."  Will you stay, or will you come?  You've been in the darkness long enough.

Blessings,
Pastor O