I suddenly realized I was not Little Red Riding Hood or whoever that hooded girl who carries her lunch to grandma is, stopping to smell flowers.
I’m the wolf.
I sometimes wear a Little Red Riding Hood cape because I want to go about my life, enjoy my kids, and laugh while we enjoy a day beside the lake. But more and more often now, I feel constrained like old caterpillar skin that needs to be shed. And I’m afraid of what may come out of me. It seems I am a caterpillar about to transition into a fire-breathing dragon.
And I don’t know what to do or where to put the fear and anger that has been stirring quietly under the surface for so many years that sooner or later, it’s bound to come out as an explosion.
I would sort of rather not do that.
I would rather be a butterfly fluttering about and minding my own business.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
And is there hope for these situations in the news and our lives that threaten to overwhelm us with darkness?
This is God’s Word on the subject: . . . I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.
Yep.
I was so startled by a surprising story of hope at a prayer group meeting that I burst into tears unexpectedly.
There, we learned the remarkable true story of a group of people praying together over issues today that bothered them. One person recounted that in that prayer group, he felt God giving him an idea of how to help clean up plastic from the ocean. I know this way to get new ideas sounds far-fetched, but stay with me1 before you snap your laptop closed.
And then this guy from the prayer meeting went out with his company and built the thing that is another piece in the puzzle of our astonishing plastics problem.
And therein (listening to God and responding ) is our hope.
What global or personal problem threatens to suffocate you, friend?
For me, lately, it’s climate change. But the good news is that God holds a part of the solution for every difficulty we face. He offers different jewels, different parts of the solution to different ones who listen to him and obey his promptings.
Will we humble ourselves and ask him to help us clean up this mess we’re leaving on Earth?
If . . . my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I’ll be there ready for you . . . I’ll restore their land to health.
As the song below plays, can we sing together that we, too, together are “aching for the yield for you to harvest from this hurt?”
Photo Credit: Land Needing Restoration by Md. Hasanuzzaman Himel on Unsplash
Footnotes:
1 Chemist August Kekulé and Physicist Albert Einstein discovered the shape of the benzene ring, and theory of relativity, respectively, after insights gleaned from their dreams at night and many similar examples abound.
In a dream, for instance, a vision at night, when men and women are deep in sleep, fast asleep in their beds—God opens their ears
And to mess with your mind a bit more, the entire scientific process is only possible with a Christian understanding of the world that God values and is the TRUTH. Think about it. If EVOLUTION were to underlie the scientific process, TRUTH wouldn’t matter and couldn’t be trusted – Only things that helped propagate your genes could be relied upon accurately, not TRUTH. More on this another time.
Thank you for liking me! I like you too! Let’s journey together!
Restoring Life 