(no subject)
I really like the book of Romans. A lot. Especially the end of chapter 8. I was reading it a while ago, and got this vivid mental picture. It needs to be taken completely out of context from the rest of the book.
I saw a lonely soldier, stumbling down a deserted road in the middle of an intense thunderstorm. It was pouring rain. He was a survivor of a brutal battle in which both sides suffered tremendous losses, and he was the only surviving soldier from his side. As he stumbles down the muddy, pothole filled road, flashes of lightning illuminate the surrounding landscape, but he wishes that they wouldn't. With every flash of lightning, grotesque figures are illuminated. Half-men with glowing eyes, like vultures, waiting to devour him once he gives in. Finally, he collapses face down on the ground, unable to carry on because of his wounds. Even so, he does not lose all hope. He slowly pushes himself up to his knees and raises his face towards the sky. Mustering every ounce of strength and courage in his body, he begins to mouth words. Indistinguishable at first, but eventually rising above the thunder and rain. Eventually, he is screaming at the sky, reminding those that would devour him of a simple fact:
In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Maybe I'm just odd, but that verse has taken on a whole new meaning for me since I started seeing it in that light. There are obvious analogies to our everyday lives in the 'background story.' Whenever I start getting *too* weighed down with all the crap that goes on in everyday life, or too weighed down by the general difficulties that I'm presented with, I think of that verse in that context, and I am given a strange sense of hope and a renewed defiance of the way the world would like me to react.
All that having been said, I want to go to bed.
I saw a lonely soldier, stumbling down a deserted road in the middle of an intense thunderstorm. It was pouring rain. He was a survivor of a brutal battle in which both sides suffered tremendous losses, and he was the only surviving soldier from his side. As he stumbles down the muddy, pothole filled road, flashes of lightning illuminate the surrounding landscape, but he wishes that they wouldn't. With every flash of lightning, grotesque figures are illuminated. Half-men with glowing eyes, like vultures, waiting to devour him once he gives in. Finally, he collapses face down on the ground, unable to carry on because of his wounds. Even so, he does not lose all hope. He slowly pushes himself up to his knees and raises his face towards the sky. Mustering every ounce of strength and courage in his body, he begins to mouth words. Indistinguishable at first, but eventually rising above the thunder and rain. Eventually, he is screaming at the sky, reminding those that would devour him of a simple fact:
In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Maybe I'm just odd, but that verse has taken on a whole new meaning for me since I started seeing it in that light. There are obvious analogies to our everyday lives in the 'background story.' Whenever I start getting *too* weighed down with all the crap that goes on in everyday life, or too weighed down by the general difficulties that I'm presented with, I think of that verse in that context, and I am given a strange sense of hope and a renewed defiance of the way the world would like me to react.
All that having been said, I want to go to bed.