Superpower
by:John
Trying to catch you up on the last 6 mos in this one post isn’t really practicle so, I’m just going to write about the last hour. I figure it’s a good start eh?
The inspiration for the name of this post–Superpower, came from a new song that we sing in our church. The chorus is something to the effect of:
You are the source,
You are the Superpower,
You win the day!
It goes on to speak of how in the midst of a world that has obviously gone wrong somewhere, God still remains victorious. I’ll tell you, today… I was really face to face with the fact that the world has gone awry. It may have been the drizzly rain was shading the way that I was looking at the scenes of the street as I walked home from work the afternoon, but certain scenes were jumping out at me, shouting that something was wrong with the world. A woman walking a few paces behind me shouted at her partner walking out of a pub across the street, “HEY!” as if to say, I caught ya red handed, ya dog! He didn’t back down an inch as he yelled back. “I’m goin’ tae get da POWER!” (meaning that he needed to put money on the electicity meter..it’s a prepaid system). Their interaction just struck me as typical of the area, and something inside me was saddened by the deterioration of relationships that seems to be so prevalent. Then, there were a couple of guys with the obvious appearance of junkies about them walking down the sidewalk-their cheeks hollow and cheek bones clearly defined. I tried to think about what they would have looked like with another twenty pounds on each of them, how it would have made them look normal, better!
Walking past the liquor shops and the stores & cafes that are now covered with grafiti lined steel shutters, and the vacated buildings with smashed windows, so much seemed as it should not be. I stopped for a while to pray as I leaned up against a wall. I prayed for a woman who I met with today who should not be in so much debt. Nor should she have treated so crappy by men in her life, but she was. I also remembered another guy who I had a long conversation with yesterday. We talked about how the bible says that the whole earth is subject to frusteration, but I didn’t need to tell him that. He’s reminded of the frusteration when he goes to the house where his wife & kids should be, but aren’t.
Actually the conversation that I had with this guy yesterday was a great one. I was definitely left with the distinct impression that God is real and that He is over all of these things, but today everything just looked so dreary! I realized then, just how down I was feeling, so I was thinking and talking to God about these things, about how He’s still joyful (and I do definitely believe that God is joyful despite the evil in the world), and I felt a question within me: will I dare to delight in God?. The question was, in the midst of all of these tough situations that can really cause despair if dwelt upon, will I instead choose to delight in the fact that God is infinitely good? The seemingly evident reality of the troubles around me were screaming for me to follow a path of despair, and the issues surrounding the depravity of our area do need to be addressed. But, the reality of God’s goodness, faithfullness, lovingkindness, and power to straighten out every crooked thing in His own time is actually far more a reality than even the evil that I was witnessing on the streets. Does that make sense? I have seen evidences of the beautiful character of God, but somehow the truths of his character are often mailigned as the devil seeks to mar the truth of God’s perfection. And His perfection is a cause for delight, so the question before me, was am I going to dare to delight in Him just now. And, I said yes.
As I said yes to God, I looked up to see a man in his fifties walking toward me with a young boy on his shoulders. The boy had a big smile on his face and a good tuft of hair clutched in each fist, but the guy didn’t seem to mind. The kid’s smile was contagious, and I truly took delight in that scene. But, ya know I was also delighting in God at the same time. I was delighting in the fact that there is still love in the world. There are still such things as laughter and smiles, hugs and kisses. Generosity still exists, and so does beauty and in the end, goodness will prevail!