Men Loved Darkness Rather than Light

I was reading Oswald Chamber's this morning from his devotion, "My Utmost for His Highest."  I was struck by a statement from John 3:19, where Jesus made this statement while speaking to Nicodemus.  Nicodemus was already confused by Jesus' statement about being born again, after telling him the Good News in John 3:16-18, basically His mission statement, He also told him in the next statement that man "loved the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil."

While at Disney's EPCOT this weekend I was at the Wine and Food Festival, that we've been going to for the last 4 or more years; the food, and drink were flowing.  It was crowded, and it was hot.  As the day went on, and after people had dropped probably more than $50 on an equivalent six-pack of beer, I couldn't help notice that we were probably leaving at the right time.  It was getting loud, you could see people were suffering the effects of drinking all day in hot Florida sun, and I knew that it was a good time for the family to be leaving.  I'm not saying that anything happened, because if it did, Disney has a way to push it behind the facades so that it's not noticed, but the door was opened, and evil was lurking around looking for an easy mark.  I could sense it.  Before I was a Christian, I would have been sitting on the curb with them, pounding down the drinks, oblivious to the evil that was lurking around looking for that moment to exploit; now that God's Spirit lives in me, it was telling me that this is a good time to go.  I'm also reminded that in a few weeks when I go into the prison to share God with inmates, that there was a missed opportunity here to share the Gospel.  That said, praise God, we did have a good time as it was one of the last times we'll get to spend as family, as Timmy's getting married in March, and when we do it again, there will be one less person in our room, but we will be blessed though with a beautiful daughter in-law with our son in the next room.

There was one neat thing that I've seen the last two or three years; there is a plane high above sky writing that "God Loves Us."  I noticed that some looked up, and smiled; some looked up, and laughed.  I was smiling...