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- Written by: Don Goulding
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may proclaim the virtues of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)
“Sallie, you come away from that light. Come on, Baby-girl, we stay down here where Master can’t find us.”
Maroons, they were called, runaway slaves who hid in the swamps during the U.S. Civil War. Pattin and his wife were examples. They bore fifteen children inside a cave they dug from the earth. Imagine those kids living underground, in constant fear, not feeling sunshine on their skin until after the war when they were teenagers.
Like the Pattin children, we are born into a world system that’s as unnatural as a cave. We grow up slaves to the darkness of wealth, appearance, and acceptance. We are created to live in the sunshine of God’s love, but our earthen cravings keep us blind to the fulness of life.
When I was eleven, Jesus called me out of the cave. For a while I lived free above ground, delivered from the counterfeit life. But in my teen years, my cave-dulled senses couldn’t handle the radiance of unlimited love. I crawled back into the pit.
Now, I’m a part-time caveman. I dance in the sweet air of liberation, but then sneak back down the tunnel to slavery. The problem is I misunderstand my identity.
I am not a caveman, a mole hiding his fear and shame from the light of truth. I’ve been chosen for freedom, made into a royal prince, adopted into a holy nation of people belonging to God Almighty. At great expense to Jesus, I’m emancipated. That’s who I really am—not a cave-dweller. I don’t want to spend any more of my years in that half-existence.
Prayer: Savior, thank you for calling me out of darkness into your marvelous light.
- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
Dear Beloved Friends,- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be like your Father in heaven…Matthew 5:44-45 (NETFull)
Alley was the most lovable, huggable, happy tail-wagger of a golden retriever I ever met. In her fourteen years she never so much as growled at the children who laid on her or tugged her velvety ears.
If I had bound Alley with a chain when she was a puppy, and every passerby kicked her or threw stones, it would have changed her temperament. She would have snapped at humans or become a shaking heap of fear.
Many of us are like abused dogs. We are mistreated most of our lives. Before children have their permeant teeth, they have callouses on their hearts from gossip, rejection, and unfaithfulness. Then the victim grows into a perpetrator.
Only mercy and love have any hope of breaking the cycle. Mercy heals wounds, and love restores hearts to the innocence of infancy. Sometimes violence can only be stopped with force. But punitive action merely interrupts the trauma, it doesn’t resolve the root problem. The only way to cure a bitter heart is with undeserved grace and unwavering love.
The next time someone barks hostility at me, I hope I remember they are an abused puppy. They were born joyful but others beat them until they only knew how to snarl. I want to show mercy, and extend love. To do less, to reply to vileness with anger, is to concede the battle. I’m called to stop the cycle, to live heroically and respond with the same mercy and love that Jesus showed me.
That’s what Alley would do.
Prayer: Father, send an abused puppy that needs mercy and love today.