This week’s blog, “Perpetrators of Darkness” follows on the heels of last week’s blog, “Deadly Infiltrators.” The poplar trees and the buckthorn have been cut down and destroyed! Where there was darkness, there is light. Where there was disorder, there is order.
Afterwards, I thought about the perpetrators of darkness, and how they rose above their subjects for their own self-centered survival.
I said to myself, “I love seeing the sunlight on the forest floor now.” It is a forest from an ant’s perspective; but from my perspective, now it is just a backyard woods.
I delighted to hear the “lumberjack” had discovered that four red oaks, a hackberry, a cherry, and a birch tree had survived! They still had their amor on or they surely would have been destroyed by the bullies.
Later that day, I discovered a small oak seeding about a foot tall. Once moved into the light, the little oak has the potential and new freedom to become what it was meant to be. And like the ancient cedars of Lebanon known for their rare wood, their longevity, and resistance to decay, the little oak will become a survivor. It will have new life.
Once the little oak is transplanted, its hope of new life becomes a potential and its potential becomes reality to be more than a survivor; it becomes a new creation ~ the former little oak huddled in darkness has now been set free to grow and mature.
The bent hackberry is staked up and standing tall; the cherry tree can spread its limbs; and the red oaks will be pruned and shaped when their time is right. The birch tree will need lots of TLC but even so, it will never recover from its deformity.
It is wonderful to see light where the perpetrators of darkness once reigned. The perpetrators have met their doom ~ their trunks are now wood chips scattered on the ground and their branches have been burned in the fire pit.
My little woods is a work in progress, but with water and light, the trees will be nourished to become what God intended them to be.
Tip: the Deadly Infiltrators and the Perpetrators of Darkness are one and the same. The messages are alike ~but told in two different parables.
Be encouraged. Stand tall. You too have been set free. You don’t have to be under the rule of the perpetrators of darkness. Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)