The Eagle Magazine
"Step Out of the Shadows"
For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow: Job 8:9
A number of years ago a group of us were returning from the Philippines and had a stopover in Hong Kong. The weather was so bad in Hong Kong that we had to circle around in the South China Sea for hours. Finally the pilot came on and said we were flying to Thailand to refuel the plane and then go on to Hong Kong. He stated the name of the city but I had never heard of it, as we were approaching the airport I was looking out the window totally amazed, the city was huge. Once on the ground the flight attendants brought around bottles of water, I ask the one near me, “What’s the name of this city again?” She gave me the name but it sounded so foreign to me that I still can’t even come close to pronouncing it. Then she said, “It’s a city of almost three million people.” I could hardly believe it.
I still think about it and am amazed, three million people in a city I didn’t even know existed. Our life is a shadow, we are little known in life and totally forgotten in death. That’s the despair of Job in the passage above. “…we are of yesterday…our days upon earth are a shadow:” When Job says we are of yesterday, we might better understand it as we were born yesterday. You get it, here today, gone tomorrow. Without God and his love The entire human race would just be here today and gone tomorrow. Life is like a vapor.
But we are not created for the darkness, we are created for the light. The light of God’s love brings salvation and salvation brings everlasting life. We were not designed to be forgotten, we were designed to have fellowship with God, our creator. One Sunday morning in 1968 I stepped out of the shadow and into the light, now I’m a child of the light and have heaven as my eternal home. Don’t live in the shadows, come walk with me in the light.
