Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

• Genesis 1:3-5

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

• John 8:12

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

• 1 John 1:5-10

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

• 1 John 2:1-2

 But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

• Romans 14:23

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’  She was not human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs was glad that we were back on the road, but in traveling down some backroads to a favorite restaurant in the middle of nowhere, Babs was wanting to see any form of light.

Babs asked, “Do you really know where you are going?  I can hardly see my hand in front of my face!”

I chuckled, “It is dark.  We are in a dense forest.  There is cloud cover blocking the moonlight.  Trust me.  There is a restaurant near here.  It isn’t the nicest restaurant you’ll go to, but they have big, thick steaks at bargain prices, and the salad and baked potatoes are delicious too.”

Babs asked, “Is that all that is on the menu?”

I smiled, although she could not see it, “They have a variety of steaks.  I think they have a fried chicken option for those that do not like beef.  And if you have turned vegetarian on me, you can eat the salad and potato and I will double down on the steak!”

Babs groaned, “No, I will eat whatever is on the menu, just not a large portion.  I just wish I could see where we were going.  STOP!”

I slammed on the brakes. “What did I miss?”

Babs asked, “You didn’t see that deer?”

I asked, “What deer, dear?”

Babs exhaled audibly, “The deer that turned around because some crazy driver from Tracy was invading his territory.  The deer went back into the woods.”

I said, “Hmmm.  If you say so.”

Babs said, “Just try not to hit every pothole.  My insides are all jiggled.”

I asked, “Do ‘other living’ have insides?  When I inflated you, before you became ‘other living’, you had nothing but air on the inside.”

Babs groaned, “Harold Dykstra, I thought we were past the point where you questioned my ‘other living’ qualities.”

I defended myself, “No! I was just questioning you having insides that could jiggle.  But I will admit that your outsides jiggle in a nice way.”

Babs giggled, “You like the way my outsides jiggle?  Do you find me attractive?”

I had painted myself into a corner.  “Yes, Babs.  I find you attractive.  When you came into my life, I needed a companion, but I am still not interested in marriage again.  Let us just say that I enjoy watching you walk around, your energy, your joy in your ‘other living,’ and your ever-present smile.  Is that a satisfying answer?”

Babs giggled, “I love that answer.  I want nothing romantic.  I am just your travel buddy.  But when are we coming to this restaurant?”

I made a wide U-turn around a couple of grain silos, and I said, “We are here!”

In front of us was a dimly lit restaurant.  The sign out front was only illuminated by the car’s headlights.  One window had a neon sign advertising a brand of beer, but even that light was dimmed.

As we went inside, Babs said, “I’m glad there isn’t much on the menu.  I doubt if I could read it with this dim light.  Do they even have a light switch in this place?  This morning, there was a guy who came into the breakfast area and he said, ‘let there be light’ and then he laughed as he flipped the switch.  I did not like that.”

I said, “Yeah.  Joking about the great works of God is not a good move.”

When we were seated in a corner booth, the waitress took our orders.  Babs asked, “Is this what John was talking about when he said ‘walk in the darkness’?  I almost don’t want to talk about the Bible in this place.  It’s kind of spooky.”

I laughed, “Babs, these are farmers and their families.  The mill that I am seeing in the morning told me about this place years ago.  The only problem might be that the food is so much, we might take half back to the hotel, but I am planning on staying two nights here.  We might just have leftovers tomorrow.  But as for a Bible study, the waitress might join us if she isn’t busy.”

Babs smiled, “Okay, so what about this warning against walking in the darkness?”

I smiled back, “You should always walk on well lit roads.  You might get run over, but the Apostle John is not speaking literally.  Evil is characterized by darkness.  Many bad things happen in the shadows, out of the watchful eye of those who enforce the law or the rules.  And God is characterized as being Light.  Jesus said, ‘I AM the Light.’  In the new Jerusalem, there will be no sun or moon because God is with us and God is Light.  So, when the Apostle John wrote 1 John, he was talking about how we should not sin.  We literally walk toward the Light when we repent of sin and follow Jesus.”

Babs scrunched her nose, “You do have a sin problem.  And when you were driving, you hit a lot of potholes.”

I asked, “Is there a commandment I haven’t heard about?  ‘Thou shalt not hit potholes in the road?’  I would love a commandment that says, ‘When potholes appear, the road crew shall fix them.’  But then again, humans have a tendency of not doing as we ought, besides doing what we should not do.”

Babs giggled, “Nope.  No new commandment, but Paul said that everything that is not faith is sin.  Maybe if you had faith that you would miss more potholes, you might actually miss some.”

I leaned in close to her, “But I did miss a lot of potholes.  The road was covered with them.  Some of these back roads have a low priority for the maintenance crew.  But is ‘pothole hitting’ your example of a sinful life?”

Babs perked up. “It sure is when you jiggle my insides when you hit each of those potholes.  But John says in his letter that he expects people to not sin.  But then we have an advocate, Jesus, to wash away our sins.  It sounds kind of like circle logic.”

I shook my head.  “No, John is stating that the expectation is that we should not sin.  But he also says that if we claim to be without sin, we are liars.”

Babs pointed to herself, “But I am without sin.”

I replied, “But you are ‘other living’ and that does not count.  We humans sin, but it clearly says that the expectation is for us to live more like Jesus.  With Jesus within us, He can work through us so that we walk in the Light.”

When we ate what we could, they boxed the rest for us.

As we got back in the car, Babs asked, “Is there a different way to the hotel?”

I said, “Sure, we’ll go the wrong direction for another mile or so.  Then there is a state highway that takes us to the interstate, and then we can double back.  It adds a good ten or fifteen minutes, but the road is a lot less scenic.”

Babs said, “If by scenic you mean full of potholes, I will take less scenic any day.  Besides, it’s pitch black dark out tonight.”

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

I started with the Scripture from 1 John and then built the story around that.  There is a steel mill in western Indiana where I was working for a few days.  I asked the guys about the best steakhouse in town and they said that the best steakhouse was not in town.  The place only dealt with cash.  They pointed me down a farm road and they told me about how many miles to drive.  Then I would see two grain silos next to the road on the left.  If I did a sweeping U-turn around those silos, the restaurant was right in front of me.  And it was indeed dimly lit.  If we had not gotten there before dark, we might have never found it.

And as for the potholes, my wife once told me that I was the most perfect driver in all the world. I thanked her for the compliment. Then she said, “Yeah, we just met a hundred potholes and you hit every one of them.” I replied, “Oh, thanks, dear.” I miss her words of affirmation.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.