“The night is nearly over, and the day is near; so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.”
–Romans 13:12
This past Sunday, John Wright shared about the time he and his family first arrived in Central Asia. They were staying in an older apartment when the plaster started to crumble and fall off the wall. Needing a quick fix, they hung a carpet on the wall until they could properly take care of it.
Time passed. Though the carpet was on the wall, the crack was still there behind it. The more time that passed, the more convinced John became that the problem was spreading. Not wanting to dig into it and find more problems, he preoccupied himself with other projects…for 10 years!
During that time, the perceived problem had grown in John’s mind. For all he knew, the whole wall might need to come down at this point! Wouldn’t it be better to just keep it covered…pretend it’s not there…just not face it. But the time had come to deal with it. John took the carpet down…and found the problem hadn’t grown. It only took a small amount of patch and a putty knife to fix. Within a matter of minutes, the wall was fixed.
We all have these carpets hanging in our lives. We’re afraid of what’s going on behind them. We hide away in the dark places the things that we are afraid of. And in our imaginations, we make them larger than reality.
But if we believe that Jesus is the light, we don’t need to fear the problems we are trying to cover up. The night is nearly over—it’s time to discard the deeds of darkness. God has given us an armor of light to address the issues we attempt to mask. When we remember that Christ sits at the right hand of the Father and He intercedes for us, we can just take down the carpet and expose the problem to the Light, and let the Healer start to repair what’s been broken.
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