Devotionals
Life is a perpetual battle ground. I become more and more convinced of that with each day that passes. Ultimately it's a spiritual battle, but it's fought so oft' in clay vessels on a field of sod meant for other things. Two kings, resistant to one another, clamoring over the same souls. One selfishly, with motives impure. The other, propelled by love and an abiding desire to restore and redeem. And the clay vessel ... caught between.
Even that is not wholly correct, for the vessel is not a pawn. The vessel continuously chooses the kingdom ... and thus the vacillation enters ... thus the turmoil stews ... for the clay soul clings fast to its soulishness, becoming darkness' foil.
The heart of man, created for light, chooses darkness ... from the beginning. Even redeemed, he finds it difficult to retain a love for the light though he was formed craving it. What paradox, we clay.
Mid day fast approaches, and as day's breeze wraps breathlessly about me, my thoughts turn, yet again, to words that have held my heart for more than a week.
Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness,
but will have the light of life.
( John 8:12)
In reading chapter 8 of John recently, these words struck a chord that still is resounding. A chord, that though I continued reading the chapter, really kept my thoughts fixed here. I have been pulled back to them time and time again these past days.
How does one read them without being transported back to the stage of the beginning?
Earlier this past week I stepped out my patio door about six in the morning to a brilliant light display over head. The canopy of stars spread out so vividly, the contrast between their light and the night's darkness simply screamed to be seen, to be understood.
Cast under its spell, I didn't want to move. I felt suspended between time, between the pages of a story written but not yet read. Though my heart longed to stay, to read it to the full, my feet propelled me onward as I walked the short distance to work.
As I walked, the darkness lost its charm, instead becoming a harbinger of disquiet. The comforting garb it seemed as I remained on my darkened patio quickly transformed into another garment as my feet set out into a world of unseen sounds, uncomfortable shadows. A world reflective of the opening page of the beginning, where darkness ruled in a vast void, free of any and all illumination.
There is something contrary buried deep in God-breathed clay. Birthed in light, clay walks in darkness. Instilled with life, it chooses death. Presented the portal to reality, clay chooses to set up house in the shadowlands.
So God, in the beginning, enters darkness, dispensing Divine illumination. And though darkness is not dispelled, clay now has opportunity to perceive the difference.
Once sharing breath with the Divine, it seems inconceivable for clay to choose something else. But the spirit of Nimrod seeded rebellion and with it a love of darkness, seeded a rejection of Sovereignty that walked hand-in-hand with a yearning after self's own deification ... and darkness becomes fully lit.
And here clay continues to sojourn.
So Light came ... I AM entered clay ... not merely illuminating the ways of God, but manifesting God in flesh-and-blood reality. Not merely setting down the path of genuine life, but walking it, step by step, within a clay vessel our eyes could behold, laying down footprints our own feet could step in to. Footprints that dispelled the darkness for all who followed, placing life's light into clay vessels that light-filled clay might abide in light forever more.
© 11 October 2006
DeAnna L. Brooks
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Sorry about the pun, but I'm glad you shed some light on this subject. You've painted us all a vivid picture that we might share in the revelation of who we are in this world... oftentimes finding it easier to walk in the darkness, but then always, always finding that we desperately need The Light.
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