Werewolves

 Scripture calls us to "follow hard after God." The root meaning of that is to cling to Him with all our strength. I think a secondary understanding is that doing so is just what the words say; hard. Following Him wholeheartedly isn't easy. Indeed it's costly. It takes us through hard places and hard times, and most often as we walk there we'll hear Him say little else except, "Trust Me!." We want more than that, but He doesn't often comply.

I heard a woman named Jennifer Rothschild, who suffered blindness at the age of 15, say that "There are seasons when we weary of our allowed darkness." We can all say "amen" to that. We can get very weary. Maybe you're very weary right now. So, what she says next may not be what we want to hear, yet we must listen anyway. "We can thrive in the dark, but only through the Light of His Word." How many of us would describe what we experience in the dark as "thriving?" Yet I believe she's right.

When I was a small boy, I greatly feared the dark. I was not helped by the reality that I had two older brothers who really enjoyed giving me detailed descriptions of the werewolves, ghosts, and witches who were lurking outside my window. My father would tell me that there wasn't anything there in the dark that wasn't also there in the light. He obviously hadn't seen the werewolves that I KNEW were there and about to pounce. I needed a weapon, and the only one I had was my brother's old, dull boy scout pocket knife. It wasn't much, but somehow it made me feel safe. Bring on the werewolves! I was ready!

Once, on the program "Antiques Roadshow," someone brought a solid gold sword, awarded to a Civil War general by the President himself. It was inscribed with the words, "Courage, Valor, Honor." Commenting on this, Rothschild said that the Father does the same in giving us His Word of promise. In His Word we find hope, courage, perseverance, strength, and most of all His Living Word of Life, Jesus Christ. He not only speaks in and through His Word, He is the Word Himself. He and His Word are our sword, and it was said of the truly great warriors of old that no one could tell where their sword ended and their arm began. If we're to be true overcomers, the same must be said of us. Can people tell where His Word in us ends and we begin, or are we truly as one?

The darkness will remain to some degree in this life. Sometimes to a very great degree. There are going to always be things that we don't understand, roadways ahead that we can't see. His words to us are simply, "Trust Me!" Trust what He's spoken and continues to speak. Trust when you don't know but know that He does. He asks a lot because that is what following hard after Him entails. It calls for a total investment of yourself coupled with total trust in Him. Trusting in the darkness. Thriving in the darkness as we walk in the Light of His Word. His Word made flesh in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ who has conquered all darkness, including the darkness we may presently be walking through.

If we'll do so, we will, like Moses, "enter into the thick darkness....where God was," and is. Let the werewolves, real and imagined, come. They are defeated. Not by a dull pocket knife, but by the power and victory of His Word. We will come through and we will thrive. Let us trust Him, even in the deepest darkness. He is there, and He reigns....forever.

Blessings,
Pastor O