It’s 4:35 a.m. and I’ve just finished a novel I’ve been working through for the past 3 weeks.
Apparently, the middle of the night is when I do my best reading and possibly my best listening to my Heavenly Father. Set in Radom, Poland in the late 30’s and early 40’s the Kurc family has endured the horrors of World War II as a Jewish family. The 7 of them, plus their spouses and children have separately spent time in a Soviet gulag, a Warsaw prison, fighting in the war in Italy, Rio de Janeiro, Paris and a Catholic orphanage to name just a few of their “travels.” But in the end, they survive. All of them. It’s beautiful and based on a true story.
You know that feeling when you finish a novel you have been totally engrossed in? Those moments when you think deeply about what you have been through with these characters. It’s a poignant moment for me tonight because of three thoughts in my head that are flowing from this novel and I believe God is reminding me of.
1. This world is not our home. Peter tells us that we are strangers and aliens in this world. I feel that so strongly the last few weeks. I felt that with the Kurc family. This is not where we belong. In fact, I really don’t want to belong here. Someday we will find ourselves walking on streets of gold, bowing before our Maker and Savior, void of sin, and reveling in the ways God led us to Himself and to our heavenly home. I can’t wait.
2. Evil is SO evil. Whatever time period we look into, evil is there. It’s so prevalent. Racism, hatred, unkindness, lawlessness, murder, sheer horror; Satan loves these. He will continue to try the same thing century after century. I think he believes he might finally make some headway one of these years, but we know the end of the story. He loses. Jesus wins. Evil will not prevail. In fact, “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” In the middle of my evil, Jesus died for ME! What a mystery.
3. We were all made in the image of God. Pastor Matt recently spoke of this so it’s been brewing around in my brain. The Latin words “imago Dei” – the image of God – is powerful orthodoxy. Whether you are Jewish, Polish, Asian, American, African, Mexican, whatever ethnicity or race, you are created in the image of God. I wish we could get this and I mean get this to where it makes a difference. Today, every person we will come in contact with has been created in the image of God! Powerful orthodoxy? Yes, extremely.
Last week, at the end of one of our Hope Kids videotaped Bible lessons, Laurie Weinschenk and I sang with the kids a classic children’s song titled, “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” It was very purposeful. I’ll close with the words of that song:
Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.