I posted before on this....a couple of times over the years....and I don't think that it ever gets through to the reader....and it probably will not today....but I experienced it again this morning so here is but another attempt.
It really is a beautiful morning here in Western Pennsylvania....71 degrees right now....with the sun giving that glow to the trees and the shrubs and the plants but not directly overhead enough for the people to seek shade. I fed the birds and checked the moisture in the flower pots. On a Saturday morning there are not enough vehicles and trucks close by to break the pleasant silence. Two neighbors.....Christians....were laughing as they shared some kind of story over their porch railings. If I were to walk upstreet right now it would be a scene out of Leave It To Beaver....maybe even Barbie. Two neighbors are up at their camps right now....one is on vacation at the shore...and two others will be at picnics later in the day.
'Really....all this politics talk...all these woke concerns....and wars....and Israel...I don't see it anywhere in this beautiful setting. All this God talk about warnings and judgments seem more conspiracy theories than reality. Don't misunderstand....I want Jesus to return....and I can see it in maybe twenty or thirty years!'
The above short paragraph is obviously not my feelings....and it's not even how evangelicals would describe it....but it is not far at all from what lies below our conscious thoughts. We're more excited about the coming NFL season....or college or high school football season.....or any one of a number of things....than the actual return of Jesus. That is a very hard saying but it is true.
There was a Christian book.....fiction....published in 1986.....that took the Christian community by storm.....Frank Peretti's....The Present Darkness. The title obviously taken from Ephesians 6:12....this from the ESV....
"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over....this present darkness....against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."
This was not a doctrinal thesis on spiritual warfare. In fact from what I know of him....the author is not capable of any such attempt. There were other hot topics that the author incorporated into the novel....but what he did get right....was that there was....and is....and always has been....and always will be as long as we dwell in these "tents"....something going on that we cannot see....and it is as every bit maliciously effective as if we could see.
In the novel....(it's been almost four decades since I read it)....there is a strong Christian protagonist....and there are demons that work in the unseen world against that strong Christian. And I remember the strong concept of prayer in combating that which could not be seen. There it is....spiritual warfare and prayer.
Back to the idyllic scene that I tried to present. On the surface....that which we can see....it is serene....not only no riots or war....but nothing of the demonic either. What cannot be seen is a different story. I am not capable of describing exactly what is going on....or the degree to which the world and/or the flesh and/or the devil is the antagonist in this story.....but I know this....it is a warfare right there amongst the hummingbirds and the lilacs and the children's gleeful exclamations.
We are in a war wherever we are....and we have to be every bit as vigilant....for example....watching the demonic assault on Christianity in last evening's Olympics opening....'celebration'....as I did last night....or in politics....or temptations of any kind. The idyllic scene such as I am writing about this morning can put us to sleep spiritually....and the lilacs may as well be a poppy field. The wounds of idleness....or 'idolness'....if I might reach into the Internet for a suitable word....are every bit as deadly as direct assaults.
So I will go back outside as I conclude this post....for I have things that need to be done....but if it be God's will....I will keep my shield lifted....and the Word near....for as Robert Frost once wrote about woods that were...."Lovely, dark and deep"...."I have promises to keep....and miles to go before I sleep..."
