Insight From the Smoky Mountains

The road was dark & curvy, with only the light from our car fleetingly illuminating our immediate surroundings in grey patches.  All we saw was the black road, bordered on both sides by black trees bedecked with shadowy leaves.  Our view of the path ahead was more often than not obscured by the bend in the road.  The black night enveloping us made what lay ahead & what lay beside impossible to discern.

Then, as the sun woke from her slumber, we began to behold the beauty that truly surrounded us.  What the night had hidden, the light revealed in magnificent detail.  The land rose up, up, up to our right while it rolled down in cascading hills to our left.  The ground was strewn deeply with amber leaves, while the myriad of trees marching up & down those hills were still stubbornly clinging to an array of their sunshiney gold, fiery red, & vibrant orange siblings.  Mingled amongst this riot of color were the evergreens with their springy & dark forest green leaves giving just the right backdrop.  We found ourselves suddenly surrounded by God's breathtaking creation!  Only, it wasn't so "sudden" after all.  God's beautiful masterpiece had been there all along in the darkness, we just couldn't see it.  We needed the light from the sun to reveal to us the reality that the black of night had blinded us to.

So it is with God.  God is breathtakingly beautiful, awesomely majestic, & infinitely worthy of our worship.  He is merciful, kind, loving, forgiving, just, & holy.  But the darkness hides Him from men.  Just as darkness is the essence of night, so it is with men's unregenerate hearts.  In the same way that the beauty of God's creation was hidden behind the darkness of the night, so is the beauty of God hidden behind the darkness of our sinful nature.  Only when the rays of light shine forth in our hearts by the Spirit of God are we no longer blind to reality.  Our eyes are opened & we can see God for who He really is . . . & who we really are - creatures in desperate need of a merciful Savior.  And we realize it's always been this way.  The light doesn't create God's infinite beauty, it simply illuminates it.

My prayer today is that the Spirit of God would shine His light in the hearts of men everywhere, revealing to them the splendor of God & their need for His mercy.  To God be the glory!