Big Mean Guards Throwing Rubber Grenades

"If I can do it? All things are possible to him who believes."

Let us think for a moment, about what if we could travel to an alternate dimension of planet Earth where everything had a different history. A history perhaps where Adam didn't eat the apple, where things are as good and amazing as we could even try to imagine. Often times people might dream of a future someday where things are all about light and wisdom and things like that. Maybe it's part of a weird cult or something, or just some kid in juvenile hall who looks out the window for a moment and wishes that they could go into such a world and everything would be different and adventurous and actually have a point.

However did you know that reality is that the world we live in is a wonderful place, in fact the best we could ever hope for? But you would say, look around Bub, and see how truly terrible it is. Wow. What kind of light or goodness could possibly be greater than all of the truly pointless things that happen? Things that just shouldn't be.

But is this an accurate view of the world? Maybe there's things we aren't aware of when we look around physically at the world and how it looks.

One time, Elishah and his servant were surrounded by three huge armies that were there to personally kill them. His servant was frantic, but Elisha was just sitting around chilling like nothing was even happening. Then Elisha got fed up with his servant's noise and he said, God please just open his eyes. And the servant looked at the mountains, and they were filled with terrifying angels of pure fire, much larger than the three armies that were hunting them.

In fact, Elisha and his servant ended up capturing those three giant armies when they all went blind for no apparent reason and started staggering around looking for directions.

Elisha didn't see his terrible problem as an opportunity to give up or something. He could see things as just an opportunity to prove how faithful God is, and how powerful his word is, and to find out what surprising and strange things God wanted to do that day.

For someone who sees like Heaven sees things, hunger is only an excuse for cooking something delicious, not something to be terribly afraid of and starve to death. The saints in heaven do not look down on the earth and wring their hands about how horrible it is down there and how they wish they could go back and throw a few crumbs to us pathetic mortals.

They probably scratch their heads about why we're all so worked up about a few little kingdoms of darkness and some tragedies that are talking trash to us. They say, hey don't you know that everything up here is yours too? You are all made in the image of God himself, and his astounding Holy Spirit has poured down from Pentecost and filled every tiny corner of the earth, waiting to help and counsel anyone who wants to team up with him. What in the world are you all yelling about? Can't you see that things aren't really that bad? In fact, they're so great, it's hard to believe it! I mean, sure you've had a few world wars. But look at everything that's in store ahead! We've already forgotten about all that measly junk and we don't understand why you don't too.

There is no such thing as fear in heaven, and there doesn't have to be any here either. It's optional. Technically we're already right there in heaven with all the others who are happy and free and never afraid, we're just vacationing on earth for a while to do some chores. We are seated with Christ at right hand of God himself, because we are the very body that is sitting on his chair.

What is the only difference? They can see what's 100% of what's really going on down here, and we don't see but a few little shreds. It's not like we have to sit around waiting for God to do some special revival movement of power or whatever at some perfect time that he randomly chose. What really happens is that people suddenly become aware of what was with them the entire time, and they get up and use it. The limit on how much they use the power and riches of heaven is only how much they are aware of what can be done, and they more they know what can be done, the more they will do. When the world is turned upside down and shaken like a little kid's piggy bank in the last days by people of God, it's not like he couldn't have done it all along. They just finally got a clue.

Suppose Elisha's servant's eyes were only kind of opened. He might see a few firey angels, maybe two or three, and think, hey, it's not so bad. Maybe we can squeak by and escape, right Elisha? But the fact is there would still be all those countless angels out there even if he wasn't aware of most of them.

Some people however hear this kind of thing, and they don't actually understand or know that they have help, but they feel like they're supposed to act like it or something. So they do a bunch of random things and basically throw themselves off a cliff to hopefully be caught by angels, but it doesn't do anything because they're just messing around. There's a huge difference between someone who has actually seen what God has given to them and someone who's running around like mad trying to make something happen.

When the blind beggar by the road heard that Jesus was coming and threw away his beggars cloak to run to Jesus, he wasn't stopping to remember Seven Steps to Faith by Dr. Doctrine, and saying, oh yeah I gotta do this step now. Okay. He was just like, oh man there's that guy who's been going around healing everything that moves! There's my big chance! This is so great, I've got to get over there right now! I'd better chuck this nasty cloak, I'm not going to need that junk anymore! Yeeha! He probably didn't think about what he was doing at all. In his blind eyes the situation was crystal clear and he was thrilled about it more than anything in his sad life.

He didn't say, hmm, I need this cloak to show I'm a beggar otherwise no one will give me money anymore and I'll die a slow death. Hmm. But if I throw it out I can run faster and get to Jesus, and maybe he could help. But if I lose my cloak I can't go back to begging. Gee, what a predicament! But I need to take step three that I read in that book by Dr. Doctrine on Faithology, and put every single one of those little principles into action for my faith machine to be activated, or else Dr. Doctrine says it will break. I don't really understand the faith machine, it's so hard to keep track of what everyone says. Oh no. I don't know, but I'd better chuck this cloak away and get over to Jesus because then everyone will think I'm so crazy radical for God to take this radical leap of faith. Well here goes nothing, I hope Dr. Doctrine knew what he was doing because I really needed that cloak.

Not hardly. The blind guy just got up and kind of grabbed his way through the crowd, not even remembering to hold on to his cloak. He wasn't looking at a bunch of faithy rules or a list of confusing talk shows he saw on Dove TV. He simply saw the loving and powerful face of Jesus in his mind and made a mad dash for him, laughing all the way at how lucky he was to choose this particular road to beg at today.

But now Jesus said, if I go away it's a lot better for you because I will send the Helper to be with you instead, and he's beside every road.

Imagine you are on vacation in Europe or something and you are captured as a hostage by Iran or something. They throw you in a dingy cell with a tiny window way up high and there are big nasty guards sitting outside the cell all day, holding machine guns and grenades. You would probably think, man I wish I was anywhere but here! This is so awful. Why did this have to happen? I wish there was anything I could do. I don't understand why this would happen to me, because there doesn't seem to be any point.

But then let's say someone throws a little bottle in from the tiny window one night, and you quickly open it and find a note from the American embassy. It tells you that the rebels that are holding you are desperate and your capture is the only thing keeping the SWAT team from bombing the whole place to ashes. In fact, they don't actually have any ammo left so all those machine guns are worthless, and most of the guards are starving from lack of provisions and you could easily shove your way past them, which is why they are sitting outside the cell all day, trying to look mean.

In that case, you would probaly just kick the rusted door open after a few tries and stroll on out, laughing at the guards when they wave their empty weapons at you. In fact, you would probably find some stolen jewels and things on the way out. It might be that getting captured will be the very thing that changes your life and makes you in to the rich businessman you always daydreamed about being, who travels the world investing.

"He defeated principalities and powers, reducing them to nothing..."

But what if that bottle falls through the window and smashes down a drain before you could read it? You would probably idly wonder what was in there, and not know what your situation really is.

What is the difference between these two situations? In one of them, you are in no danger but you are in darkness so you don't try to get out even though it is very possible and not that hard to do. In the other one, your eyes have been opened to see what really happening, so you actually end up being happy about the whole thing. You'll laugh about it with your buddies later over a shrimp cocktail, and they'll marvel at your courage during that crazy adventure, just like a real Hollywood movie! What an exciting time to be alive!

Especially if we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven already, then we don't have to be impressed by the world's Gloomy Tuesday outlook and all the huge landscapes of terror. We might not know exactly what all is possible yet, but we do know that it's a whole lot more than what we thought before, and the knowledge will drive us to go find out, and then keep finding out even more with great curiousity. And it's not being kept a secret for a few that will work hard enough and prove their holy dedication to sweat out a few principles from the cold dirt of scripture, like Adam who sweated and toiled to get a few thorns from the ground.

We can take the questions of life in one hand, even those things we wondered at when we were out in the world doing whatever, and then take the things we can see through what scriptures tell us about, and finally bring them together here, in our life. There will always be surprise. There will always be more to learn. Disaster is just an adventure waiting, and an opportunity to experience how great and wonderful God is, if we would only realize that it was always that way all along, even when we were wandering around trying to get by.