There are days, seasons where it seems that the darkness outweighs the light. A good friend and I have been talking over the last couple of days. She said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” She’s right but it doesn’t make the world any less crazy, scary. Hard to understand.
Sickness, war, cancer, death, to name a few, all crowd in, vying for our attention. They’ve got mine these last few weeks. Even the weather is making people wonder what is going on. I watched a documentary on climate change the other night and I felt frightened for the world and for my kids’ future world. It wasn’t even news to me. I like to keep a close eye on the weather and climate change because the fact that the world is warming up is of great concern to me. I hate hot. I hate summer.
Doom and gloom. With a late spring we are still waiting for, the world seems dirty, tired and just plain mean. It’s hard to feel grateful. I just want to go back to bed and pull the covers up.
Maybe while I’m lying there, I will think about some of the things that I’ve been reading about in Ephesians, and Colossians during the LentChallenge. A theme that has been running through these epistles like an overflowing river. Whispering hope. Amidst all the distractions, it caught my attention. The words IN CHRIST and the idea of Christ filling things. Let me give you just a few examples I’ve come across:
Ephesians 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms, with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
Ephesians 1:7 In Him we have redemption through his blood….
Ephesians 1:13 And you also were included in Christ…
Ephesians 4: 5-6 One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Ephesians 4:10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe.
Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
Colossians 2:9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.
Colossians 3:11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. (emphasis added)
Those are just a few I’ve picked out. If there was a focal point of the whole earth and everything in it, it would lead right back to Jesus. In Him we are saved, we are blessed, we are redeemed. He is in charge of all because he created it all. All things – every thing that is assaulting you and me today, either good or bad – bow to Him. He is before it and He is holding all things together. He is all and in all and we can never get away from Him because He won’t let us go. He’s got hands big enough to hold us. To hold the world.
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. Psalm 139:7-10