Light in the darkness

I heard on the radio recently that the Oxford Junior Dictionary has chosen to delete several Christian words from their dictionary. Words like altar, chapel, Christian, monk, nun, parish, Pentecost, pew, psalm, pulpit, sin, and devil. AND they were replaced with words like allergic, celebrity, and MP3 player. Their editors justified the changes by citing declining church attendance and multiculturalism.

Well, there's a new concept... just get rid of words we don't like to deal with?! Like wiping them off a page is going to get rid of them or stop people from using them?? I'm not sure about anyone else, but life doesn't work that way for me.

So, if I declare right now that I'm never going to use the words violence, rape, trauma, guilt or shame again - they're just gone from my life, from my memory? That would be awesome! But that's not how our world works. It's really not even how God intended for it to work.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7 says, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort."

We go through trials and distress so that we may comfort others when they go through trials and distress. It is through our trials that we learn compassion and patient endurance. We learn to comfort others because God has comforted us. He is our perfect example!

I don't dwell on my trials of the past, but they have made me who I am today. Those trials engraved in me the capacity to love, to comfort, and to empathize with those who have suffered. And to look at them through the eyes of Jesus. And at the end of the day, those sufferings and trials give me the opportunity to share God's love with those around me.

We can remove words like sin and devil from the dictionary, but that doesn't make them go away. If anything, it will make it worse. Encouraging people to forget those words, to use something softer or something politically correct in our lives will breed and grow more sin and devil. If nothing is ever sinful or of the devil, then we've just erased right and wrong... and everyone will be RIGHT, no matter what they do.

Erasing right and wrong. That's exactly what our world wants us to do - to justify all the horrible things done in the act of sin and selfishness. We can look at our world and see despair, see the hurt and suffering done to helpless children and those without a voice. And they want us to look away and pretend it's not happening, because it's easier to look away than to fight for what is right. FIGHT! Fight because sin and devil DO exist!

James 1:15 says, "Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death." And Romans 5:12 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." According to scripture, sin is pushing us towards death - death literally and spiritually.

The existence of sin and death isn't a pleasant thought, neither is the devil. But the existence of those dark words brings glory to words like grace, mercy and forgiveness. It's an amazing gift to be able to say - through Christ I live for eternity. It is with Christ that I have the power OVER sin and death, and that leaves the devil powerless. ...THAT'S what they are afraid of!

I will never deny my trials and my past. It is the thing that draws me ever closer to God. I know sin and death, we all do. But knowing what stands on the other side is MIRACULOUS! My Lord set me free from sin and death! And that option isn't just for me, it's for EVERYONE! It's for everyone that acknowledges the dark exists but chooses the LIGHT!

John 8:12 ESV

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”