“The people who sat in darkness saw a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned” (Matthew 4:16).

Let’s do a bit of time travel and fast forward to our day. What has changed in 2,000 years?

• The pace of life seems to have at least doubled. We measure time by the split seconds now.
  
• Wardrobes have changed (thank God for Levi).
  
• Technology has changed at light speed.
  
• There’s been astounding advances in medicine.
  
• We’ve invented countless means of travel. Bicycles, planes, trains and automobiles.
  
• Humans have traveled to the moon.
  
• Unmanned craft have visited or flown by most of the planets in our solar system.
  
• And my favorite…multitudes of musical instruments and styles have emerged.

We’ve advanced, progressed, conquered. But with all our wonderful discoveries and achievements, we have not, on our own, escaped that stubborn “darkness.” It starts in the human heart, aided and abetted by an unseen, spiritual but very real enemy.

And the darkness within us inevitably spills out of us creating cultural, systemic and widespread spiritual darkness on grand scales. We’ve become content to live in the “shadows” on this battlefield where darkness and light clash, where good and evil compete for dominance in this struggle that’s as ancient as human history. Sitting around campfires rather than “caffeine stores,” our ancestors longed for the lifting of their darkness.

Then this baby was born, a child with many names, including, “The Light of the World,” the Light that would cancel the “shadow of death” as Jesus, the eternal Son of God, pierced the frightening darkness we had settled into. Then that “Daystar” dawned. Mary’s baby came ready to fight and conquer our darkness. Hallelujah! The Light has come.

Life can be hard, harder than hard at times. There are those moments in all of our lives when we think the difficulty is so large that there is no way out. It’s over. I’ve come to the end. We so often face situations where we think all is lost, and we’re done. Forget about it. It will never change. It’s easy to lose heart in difficult times. Life allows things that begin to look as if all is against you. There is no way out. God will even send you a brother or a sister to encourage you, but you quickly dismiss their words and their help, because you’re convinced, it won’t change.

Elisha’s servant was in this exact place in 2 Kings 6. He woke up one morning to see a Syrian army approaching to capture him. It overwhelmed him. He cried out to Elisha, “Alas, my master, what shall we do?” With all that he saw, he panicked. He didn’t know what to do. But Elisha did. He prayed. He prayed that God would open the eyes of his servant, so that he could see it’s not as bad as it appeared.

Just like Elisha’s servant, what is needed in times like these is for God to open our eyes to see what we cannot see spiritually.

There is a hidden spiritual realm all around us. It’s real but unseen. There is the physical and the spiritual. Unfortunately, the physical tends to get all of our attention and focus. It forces itself into the forefront, into our face, our mind! You get an email. A phone call. Eyes see. Hearts feel. Minds race. It’s easy to lose sight of the spiritual because of the physical. We have to train ourselves to be sensitive to see the spiritual.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, NKJV).

Sadly, living as we do in this material world, we get so involved in the physical, material things of life, where that is all we ever see.

We lose sight of the spiritual. We lose sight of God! We get so concerned about the opposition that is facing us. The power of the enemy, especially when we begin to fight the forces of the world. How hard it is. How hopeless it seems! We are like this servant. What we see discourages us! ALAS! We falsely conclude almost every day, “Oh there’s no way we can withstand them!”

“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4, NKJV).

“What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else” (Romans 8:31-32, NLT).

These truths are ours in Christ. Don’t forget them. Memorize them. Hide them in your heart. God is greater. God is stronger. God is faithful. When our eyes are on the situation, panic takes over. We freak out when we see our enemies, when we face our difficulties.

Pastor Chuck Smith taught us, “The longer we look at our problem, the bigger it gets!” It’s true! The problems surrounding our lives can seem so big that we don’t even see or feel God anymore! We are like Elisha’s servant here saying, “It’s over! Nothing we can do. Let’s just throw up our hands and give up.” Don’t give up!

Oh, that God would open our eyes, that we might see the spiritual.

Elisha prayed that his servant’s eyes would be open, and they were! He saw the stronger army of God surrounding the place. I pray that in every situation we are in, we would not only see the problems around us but also the solutions! When the eyes of the servant were open, he could see the spiritual parts behind the scenes; he saw that the angels of the Lord were surrounding the Syrians, the horses and chariots of fire surrounding the Syrian army. What a difference it made in his whole outlook.

“And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army, surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, ‘Alas, my master! What shall we do?’ So he answered, ‘Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, and said, ‘LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.’ Then the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:15-17, NKJV).

When we only look at the material things, so often we say, “We’ve had it!”, but when God opens our eyes, and we see the spiritual dimension, it changes completely. We say, “They’ve had it!” Oh, that we would see the power of God! The power that God has made available to us. Those resources that are ours in the realm of the Spirit.

Looking back, isn’t it true that God has been faithful? Isn’t it true God was faithful? What was the big problem 10 years ago? Ten days ago? God came through. He did then. He will again!

I listen to podcasts. It’s a great way to maximize my time while doing other things like driving, working-out, and cleaning around the house.

While on a run recently, I was listening to the TED Talks podcast titled Believers and Doubters. It was supposed to be an intellectual discussion on the nature of belief and faith. One of the people interviewed was an atheist. I was provoked by something she said. One of the key components in the “epiphany,” that led to her unbelief, came about when she pondered why God is so “needy.” She told the interviewer, “Why would God care if people believed in Him or not? That was one of the many things I found so shocking reading the Bible, is first of all, how insecure God is. I mean God is so insecure He needs everyone to say, ‘You’re the Number One, and You’re the Number One over all the other gods and You’re the Top God.’ And it’s like—the most insecure character.”

I wonder where this woman ever got the idea, from reading the Bible, that God is “needy” or that He’s insecure and seeks to compensate for His low self-esteem by having people honor Him; because, that’s nowhere to be found in THE Bible. Methinks she conflates what she assumes God is like and what reality is like.

God wants us to believe in Him and translate that belief into practical loving, because He loves us and wants what’s best for us.

While God isn’t in the least needy, as this particular atheist states it, He does indeed care if people believe in Him; but not for HIS sake. He cares for theirs. What a person believes about God is THE most important thing about them; because, it is the bedrock of all other thinking and living. God wants us to believe in Him and translate that belief into practical loving, because He loves us and wants what’s best for us. Since He created us for His purposes and pleasure, life simply won’t work as it ought apart from our whole-hearted acquiescence to His will.

It’s long been satan’s (I refuse to capitalize his moniker) strategy to cast God’s will as onerous and hard; a burden to be endured. He insinuates that God’s holding out on us; that the “good life” awaits just on the other side of our decision to go our own way. Thus, telling Eve fulfillment and achieving her potential lay in doing what God warned not to. But it’s precisely BECAUSE God loves us that He tells us to do one thing, while not doing another. His commands aren’t aimed at diminishing life; they all aim at allowing us to flourish.

Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly.” However much life Jesus has brought us, there’s MORE, and Jesus came so that more would be appropriated by us. God wants us to flourish! And He wants it because He loves us and wants the best for us. But God doesn’t NEED us. Rather, we need Him.