Last night, sitting in a rented cabin with my children on Christmas vacation, my son began to complain that his eyes were burning. I realized that smoke was pouring in from the fireplace and soon my eyes stung while the thick, dark smoke began to fill the room. We eventually got the flew open wider and a gust of cold winter wind helped clear the room once the window was opened, but for a brief second we couldn't see very well and felt the pain of the smoke in our eyes.
Like the smoke burning our eyes so that we could not see, so it is with our earthly journey while we continue to walk in sin. The song "Amazing Grace" talks of this metaphor of being blind. . . "I once was blind, but now I see. . ." In describing my conversion experience to a friend last summer, I, too, spoke of how my period of falling away from God's grace was like stumbling around in darkness, unsure of myself, my life or purpose, and everything in the world was askewed in my mind because of seeing through a foggy lens. Once Jesus came into my heart, I was guided by the light of the Holy Spirit and it was as though the "foggy lens" was removed from my eyes and I could see what was right, true, and what God's ultimate plan was for me--to love and worship Him unselfishly. While we may fall if trying to walk around in darkness, or be stung by smoke in our eyes, we will utimately perish if we continue in this life without the light of God. Without Him, we are all blind and dead in our transgressions.
Isaiah 42:16, "I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These things I will do; I will not forsake them."
Praise to the Lord for He allowed us to 'rise above the smoke. . .or fog, or darkness'. He sent the Light of the World, Jesus His Son to be born amongst us. How AWESOME is that? The Creator of the Universe came to become human, and then suffered and died to take on the sins of mankind! All so we can walk with Him, by His light. So accept this invitation today. Choose to no longer stumble around in darkness and pain without a Savior who can show you the way.
Jesus said in John 12:46, "I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should abide in darkness." Let it be so!
