Away from the Window

No matter what they do, it seems like they're batting against a window of their own sin
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He was desperate. And blind too.

The little green housefly had been trying to get outside for three weary weeks. Night and day he buzzed around the window in my bedroom, batting against the glass. Sometimes he landed on the slick surface and ran up and down, searching for a way to reach the vision of outdoors and beyond.

I found the little pest annoying but intriguing. His sheer determination to get past that glass seemed endless. Normally, I detest flies. Ten people live in my house, and I get the job of handling the trash. On summer days with bulging trash bags, I'm not on speaking terms with these buzzing creatures. But somehow, I never could smash this little guy. Blindly, tenaciously, he launched himself at my window. I waited to see if he'd quit or die flying.
The glass wouldn't let the fly through. He was doing his best, but his best simply didn't cut it. He was doing the wrong thing.

Perfection Demanded

Sometimes that's how people act. They know that there's a heaven, and they're afraid of hell. The ten commandments shows them where they've messed up, so they try to do better and clean up their act. But no matter what they do, it seems like they're batting against a window of their own sin. They see that vision of life and heaven out there, but they can't seem to reach it. They're stuck.
We're all familiar with the Ten Commandments.
We know the things God demands: those "thou shalt nots." No taking his name in vain. No murder or envy or stealing. No adultery. We know God says that breaking just one of the rules is the same as breaking all of them.
We also see his "thou shalts" Love me with all your heart and mind and strength. Honor your parents the same as you honor me. Sanctify a day of rest, and shut out everything in the world but me.
Rules, rules, rules! Nobody can follow them! God won't be satisfied with the best we can do either. He demands perfection.
Aaron had two sons that found out this truth about God too late. Nadab and Abihu decided to buy some favor with God by burning incense in front of the Tabernacle. They thought it was a brilliant idea, but it was a lousy one. God had a strict rule about incense: only the High Priest was allowed to burn it. So the Lord sent fire from the sanctuary and burned them to a crisp (Leviticus 10:2). Their service didn't meet his standards.
So what can we do?

Freedom Discovered

That fly hit my windows for weeks. He never noticed the chance I gave him to escape: I left my bedroom door wide open. If he had thought to check, he could have gone through the door and upstairs. Our homeschool's on summer break right now, and with seven kids tearing in and out, the back door swings wide every minute or two. That fly could have slipped through somehow. He never did try.
Finally, I decided it was time for a little grace.
Carefully catching the little guy in a cup, I took him outside. He hesitated at the lip of the cup, obviously not believing his own good luck. Then he took off and vanished--right into one of the big black sacks of trash in the garage. He made it to fly heaven, I guess.

I surrendered my life to Jesus, and let him take me away from the window to real life beyond.
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God did the same for me. When I was fourteen, I realized I'd never get past those Ten Commandments, or the other many rules, for that matter. My head was splitting from hitting the glass. I couldn't ignore my sins or take glass cleaner to them and hope God would let me pass. So I asked God to take over. I surrendered my life to Jesus, and let him take me away from the window to real life beyond. Someday, when I die, I'll be free from sin. The glass will be gone for good, and I'll be in heaven--people heaven, that is!

Stuck at the Window?

Where are you? Senselessly beating at your sins?
Squirting a little glass cleaner of good deeds on them to make you look better? Come on, you're smarter than that! You'll never score enough good deeds to make up for the smudges and bad marks.
Paul says that the commandments are a teacher, a schoolmaster: "The law was our guardian and teacher to lead us until Christ came" (Galatians 3:24)
God's rules meant to give us a lesson--and a hard one--about our own futility.
Our heavenly Father wrote the lesson for us. Only he can show us the love between the lines of his commandments. They're the final test, and we flunk every time. That's the whole idea with them. God put them on the test to show us how totally helpless we are. We're like a kid in kindergarten who's given a trigonometry exam. There's no way we can pass it, much less ace it!

We're like a kid in kindergarten who's given a trigonometry exam.
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That's where Christ comes in. He lived a perfect life, keeping all of God's commandments to the letter. He paid the price for every one of our sins when he passed the biggest test of all, on Calvary. All we have to do is claim the power and forgiveness of the blood he shed on that old rugged cross. When we do, we quit making a mess of our lives and allow Jesus to score an A+ for us.
The other option isn't so cool, you know. It's called fire.
The people who try to work their way around the glass only earn heartache in this world and judgment in the life to come. Nadab and Abihu found that out the hot way.
Oh, yeah--the little fly had a name. I called him Dalan, after me. Maybe there's a fly with your name buzzing against a window somewhere. It won't make the world a better place to crunch one fly, and the bug sure could use a hand.
It helps everyone to get away from that window.

-by Dalan Edwin Decker

Beating Addictions, Finding God

By the time I was twelve I felt so worthless I didn't think there was a reason for me to alive.
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I close my eyes and pictured myself with my father in a boat in the middle of blue lake. I could feel the balmy wind across my face and hear nature singing all around us. It was a day made for fishing, with nothing to hurry us. I held my pole over the water, waiting for the perfect catch as my father and I chattered about sports. Finally something tugged at my line. With my father's help, I pulled a fish from the water. When I looked up, I saw my father beaming with pride at me. I couldn't stop the smile from spreading over my face.
Suddenly, someone knocked into me, jolting me from my thoughts. I pulled my eyes open and saw the familiar crowds passing me by at school. Drawing in a deep breath, I pushed myself from the wall and made my way to class. But the sweet memory of the daydream lingered in my mind.

Never Fitting In
My only real memories of my father were of him beating my mother. He left when I was three, and my mother had to start working two jobs to make ends meet. I'd never known what it was like to have a father figure in my life.
I'd grown up the fat kid, never getting picked for any teams. I never had anyone teach me how to throw a football or catch a baseball. I never felt like I fit in.
By the time I was twelve I felt so worthless I didn't think there was a reason for me to be alive. I was tired of hurting. I wanted the pain to go away. Ending my life seemed a good option. Then I wouldn't have to endure what my life had become.
I pushed the thought to the back of my mind. With time, I found a group of people I fit in with. We were all misfits who joined together, needing acceptance. We found it in drugs, alcohol, and getting in trouble with the law. We figured if we didn't fit in with the cool kids, we'd see how bad we could be.

Desperate for Drugs
By fourteen, I tried my first line of cocaine. By fifteen or sixteen, I was selling drugs. By eighteen, I'd been in and out of jail. By twenty, I was a felon.
I went to jail, but go out in six months. Back at home, my cocaine addiction just got more and more out of control. Before I knew it, I had a four hundred-to five hundred-dollar-a-day habit. I smoked it, snorted it, and popped pills. I also drank heavily, doing anything to numb the pain.
I became so desperate for drugs I even stole from my mom. It broke her heart. She worked so hard to give us things. She wanted so desperately to help me. A few years before, she'd starting going to church and had given her life to Jesus. She'd tried numerous times to get me to go to church, and she told me that God could change my life. I told her there was no God. I didn't want to hear the truth.
As guild pounded at me, I looked in the mirror and saw a reflection of someone I hated.
Man, you are worthless. Absolutely worth nothing at all.
People have told you that, and that's who you are. You're a drug addict. You stole from your own mom,
you loser.


Plans to Die
That's when I decided to take my life. I got enough cocaine to stop my heart and decided that this time there was no going back.
The plan was that I'd OD while my mom was at work. My brother would come home and find me dead. My body would be gone before my mother ever made it home.
I did the cocaine and my heart began beating faster and faster. The end was in sight, and I didn't care. That's how much I hated myself.
Then the door opened. My mother! She'd come home early. The last thing I wanted was for her to see this. But things were already in motion. I couldn't reverse time.


More Powerful than Addiction
I dropped my knees as the drugs took over my body. My life began to slip away. My mother screamed and cried out to God to save my life. Miraculously, an ambulance arrived.
As the paramedics tried to save my life, I felt this unexplainable power. I knew I was experiencing God. I can't explain it, but I just knew Jesus Christ was alive. I knew he was seated at the right hand of the Father.
Suddenly I didn't want to die.
"Jesus, save me," I cried out.
And I meant it. I decided I wasn't going back.


God is so much more powerful than any addiction
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It hasn't always been smooth sailing since I gave my life to Jesus. The bottom line is that I have to fight.
Drug addiction is a powerful thing. Cocaine was my life. It was everything to me. The devil loves that kind of addiction. It's powerful. But God is so much powerful than any addiction.



Crazy Enought to Believe
We served a powerful God, and I think if we ever truly get it down in our spirits how powerful our God is then we can overcome anything. When I read Philippians 4:13, I am just crazy enough to believe I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
It's like when dad says, "Son, on your birthday we're taking you to Chucky Cheese." If it's a little kid, he doesn't worry about how he's getting there or if his family has enough money. He just know that Daddy says he's going to Chucky Cheese on Friday, so he'll be there.
That's the treasure I have when I read that Scripture. It says you can do all things through Christ. When I read that verse, that is it. I don't worry about all the rest. I just know that Daddy said it. That is it, and that is enough for me.
When I accepted Christ, I felt for the first time in my life like I'd picked. For the first time I knew the love of a Father I'd longed for my entire life. Finally, I felt accepted--and knew I'd never go back to my old way of living.
-by Joseph Rojas of (Seventh Day Slumber)

We Don't Need Another Hero

I was so captivated that I even believed I was Superman
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When I was ten I was obsessed with Superman. The Man of Steel was my hero. I could not get enough of him. I would spend hours in front of my parent's television watching the movies. And when the movies weren't on, it would be Superfriends. Well, Superfriends or Scooby Doo. (If only Superman had been given a cameo role on the latter, instead of Batman & Robin or the Harlem Globetrotters, my childhood might have been happier.) But, I digress....back to Superman.

Super Dreams
Not only did I have the action figure that made a punching motion when you squeezed his knees together, but I had the Superman underwear match!
I was so captivated I even believed I was Superman.
On summer afternoons I would tie on my very own cape and fly, soaring high over the Metropolis skyline. I can only imagine how ridiculous this looked to my neighbors.
Mainly because I wasn't really flying I was running around my backyard with my arms stuck out straight ahead of me (If you've ever done this, you know that running with your arms in this position makes it difficult to maintain your balance.)
And not only was I not even flying, my cape wasn't even a cape. Instead, it was beach towel with the logo of the insurance company my mom worked for. And it was pinned around my neck using a safety pin that at one time held my diapers around my waist. You know the kind, about two inches long with a plastic yellow duck as the latch.
And I wasn't afraid to wear the duck pin either. Why? Because I was Superman.
When you're Superman, you can pretty much wear whatever you want and not to have worry about anyone talking trash.

All Grown up?
That was a number or years ago, though. Since then, I have grown up. I have graduated from college and been working for few years. I have matured. If you were ask me today whether I still thought I could be Superman, my answer would be much sensible and levelheaded. The answer would be "No, of course not". And I think you know where I am going here, because the answer is pretty obvious:Instead, I would be Spider-Man.
When I was teen, I needed a reality check. The whole story of Superman is a stretch. An alien who is sent to earth and, under the effect of the sun, has superhuman powers? That is about as far-fetched as thinking a man could survive under water and communicate with sea creatures!
Spider-Man, however, is an entirely different story.
Spider-Man was just a normal guy--normal guy who accidentally got bit by a genetically engineered super spider. Not only it is plausible, but completely possible! It could happen to anyone. It could happen to me! All I need is to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right escaped super-spider, and BAM!. . . I am Spider Man.

Pieces of Ourselves
Really, though, I think the reason I have wanted to be a superhero from such a young age is the same reason every person has wanted to be one:Superheroes best embody our greatest qualities. They are strong. They are fearless. They are selfless. They are compassionate. They are caring. They are loving. They are human. They hurt for the people they love, and they long for their love to be returned.

Superheroes best embody our greatest qualities
We identify with them. We want to be them. We sit in theaters watching the visual narratives of their stories unfold, and we see in them pieces of ourselves. In our minds we project our own image on the big screen, stopping the subway train just before it plunges into the river, saving the day. We watch the credit rolls, wishing the world really did have a hero like the one in the movie we just watched.
What we do not always realized is that the world did have a superhero, and He first stepped onto the soil couple thousand years ago. But instead of a fictional hero sent from a far off planet to a Kansas Farm, or one created by a freak insect bite in a New York City, our hero was sent from heaven to a manger in Bethlehem. He came to earth for no other reason than to save everyone from an evil more dark than any comic book villain ever imagined. That man was Jesus Christ.


Jesus wasn't your typical Superhero. He had no logo
on His chest or spotlight beacon in the sky.
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Truly Heroic
But Jesus wasn't your typical superhero. He wore no cape or costume. He has no logo on his chest or spotlight beacon in the sky. He didn't have a wise crackling sidekick with a catchy tagline. And He didn't try to hide His identity to protect himself or his family. He boldly proclaimed who He was, fearless of the danger it would later bring upon himself and his friends.
Jesus didn't come to earth and not know why He was here. He didn't just find out what God intended of Him once He got here. He left heaven knowing full well what he had to do. He knew everything that would happen to Him--and He still came. You see, instead of possessing superhero attributes, He was strength. He was fearlessness. He was selflessness. He was compassion. He was love. Everything He did and everything He said defined those attributes.
So the next time you head to the theaters to catch the latest summer blockbuster starring a web-slinging, faster-than-a-speeding-bullet caped crusader, remember this : The world doesn't have a flashy superhero -it has you and me. We may be the closest thing to Jesus some people ever experience.
And so we are called to be strong and fearless and selfless and compassionate and loving. We are called to stand up for what is right, fight for the weak, show mercy to the poor, and help the sick. We are called to be the heroes..
Are you up to it? I sure hope I am.
-by Brian Coates