Tim Turner

One dreaful glance over my shoulder I essayed. Not long enough to see, or did I see? The rim of the sunrise that shoots time dead with golden arrows and puts to flight all phantasmal shapes. Screaming I buried my face in the folds of my teacher’s robe.

“The morning! The morning!” I cried, “I am caught by the morning, and I am a ghost!” but it was too late.

-The Great Divoce by C. S. Lewis

To add a little bit of meaning to the above quote you need to know about the book it is from. The Great Divorce is a short novel by C S Lewis about a man who takes a bus ride from hell to heaven. Upon arriving he discovers two things. For one, he is a ghost. The man in the novel witnesses “solid people” who come and explain that he too can become solid. Second, he discovers that in his ghostly form, he cannot effect heaven. When he steps on the grass, it does not move, instead it feels like spikes in his feet. When tall grass gets blown in the wind and brushes him, it feels like a boulder knocked him over. The book on the whole is a hard look at grace, good, and evil. Throughout the book though there is mentioned the end of time when the “twilight” of hell will turn to the darkness, and when the sun will rise to morning in heaven. At that time will be the end of evil.

I couldn’t help but listen to that last part of the story over and over again. Christ said He’d come like a thief in the night when no one was expecting(not even Him by his own admission). Do you ever ask yourself what it would be like if Christ showed up face to face tomorrow? The more I learn about Christ the more I’m appalled by my own behavior. My stomach clenches a little bit at the idea of have to face Christ in my current state of being. That is why grace is so amazing. Just as I’m terrified by my own screw ups, I’m more grateful than ever for how much I’ve been forgiven. I don’t think Christ intended for us to live in fear of His coming. I think He wanted us to be prepared, because in that process of preparation we grow closer to Him.

How much more beautiful will it be when we see Him face to face if we have pursued a likeness of Him? I think its more than we can understand, but I do know this. On the day the dusk becomes the morning, I intend to stand in the rays of light. Not be caught as a ghost.

What exactly do you do when you feel like everything is just slipping through your fingers? My life has never been that bad. I have been blessed more than a lot of people, regardless of childhood hurts. So, how do I still end up at a point of feeling like I can’t move, breathe, or think? When do we start to walk down the road that led us to this place, and could we have seen this coming? I certainly don’t know, but today something happened that lifted me up more then I ever expected it to.

You know that month when all the bills just seem to hit you square in the face at just the wrong moment? Yep, me too. So, with everything seeming to come out of no where I was a bit concerned about this month, I can’t lie about that. Today Kat called me to inform me that for the past year we have been incorrectly paying our rent. Apparently we’ve been paying too much. Since this is the last month on that particular lease, they credited us for the extra payments throughout the year. As a result we had a cheaper rent payment, which will help us in the long run. All in all we didn’t save a ton of money, and it didn’t do anything miraculous for us, just made things a bit easier. It gets hard in our busy lives to stop and realize how God works throughout our day. Today was just an example of God taking something in my life and using it for good.

Why do I worry so much? Matthew 6:25-31 Has a bit to say about worry. Have I honestly accomplished anything by fretting over the little things in life, or even the big things for that matter? No, all thats happened is it makes me miserable. How can I expect to change the world, when I can’t stop worrying about tomorrow? The thing is, its not just me. Imagine what would happen in this country if the believers would drop their daily worrying and anxiety and actually trust God to handle it for us. In Romans 8:31-32 Paul puts it simply. The creator of the universe is on our side, so what do we have to worry over? When we worry we tell God we don’t think He is going to keep His promises to us. Now ask yourself, would you say that to His face? If not, then why do we live it everyday?

We strive so hard to distract ourselves. Movies, music, and technology fill our lives. The more we fill our lives the more we can’t hold on to anything that matters. How close are we to having to set an appointment to meet with our families? Why is it so hard to set down the blackberry and not worry about that new email you just got? Isn’t it amazing how we can be connected to the entire world all the time, and yet never connect to anyone?

Psalms 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God…”