Friday, March 4, 2011

Angry Beaver -- Picture truths series #2 By Gary Fultz

Vicious beaver


Here I was, minding my own business on an absolutely calm evening with the lake all to myself. I was catching a load of crappies from a canoe barely drifting through the moon lit evening. I just about tipped the canoe when the water was torpedoed by this angry beaver. This beaver demon was acting out the lake equivalent of road rage. Evidently the lake was not big enough for the two of us even though it is almost a mile long. This big old beaver stalked me wherever I went and would get by the canoe and slap the water with his tail. It sounded like someone was throwing big boulders off a cliff into the water. He was acting like he overdosed on sugar maple trees!
I finally went after him because the crappies quit biting. The beaver dove and disappeared; the frogs started croaking “jaws” music as daylight was gone. Even the moon was trying to get behind a cloud as its normal aura was being disgraced. A strange sense of evil settled about me so I quickly turned to look for the landing.
I began having visions of the beaver eating my only wood paddle as I picked up the pace to get to the safety of shore, all the while pronouncing blessings on the early beaver trappers in this country. Crappie fishing might never have been discovered without those trappers. I realized that as the light was fading so was my grip on reality!
       
Strange things happen in the dark! Our mind adds to the strangeness, and literally if unchecked, the mind can become completely irrational. I don’t remember feeling fear for my life or anything (and I wouldn’t admit it if I did), but that beaver surely became a monster in the water that I didn’t want to agitate anymore. I would really rather face a bear than a vicious underwater monster that eats big trees for a living! Lately I have solved the problem by bringing three paddles!
These are the things people laugh about by day and yet experience by night. What is it about the mind that can manufacture embodiments of fear in dark places? Is it possible that darkness has its own powers? Could it be that the absence of light is a camouflaged environment for evil? Whatever people think about the darkness, it’s easier to do wrong in the night. It’s easier to deceive and be deceived in the dark. It’s easier to imagine that unseen and undiscovered evil feels ok in a totally darkened and depraved mind.
What a shock to discover that our inner being is naturally a dark place without light as we are born that way! The sin condition (and a totally darkened mind) has infected all mankind and has deluded our thinking, reasoning ability, and our ability to see truth in this ever present darkness. We in essence have become the monsters while pretending to be the angels to the rest of the planet! Why? Because it’s easy to deceive ourselves in the dark, and think we have some light in us that can be fanned into a source of light.
All over scripture, light is associated with the presence of God and darkness is associated wherever God is not present. Look it up; 2 Samuel 22:29 says “the Lord turns my darkness into light”. Psalm 18: 28 “My God turns my darkness into light”. This is a thread from cover to cover and part of Gods daring rescue of mankind through Jesus, to let God’s light shine in our inner being through the person of Jesus! “In Him was life, and that life was the light of men” (John 1; 4)
Light came into the world again
        
When we believe in Jesus we let Him, and all He is (The way, truth, life, and light itself) come in, Jesus says to the Father “We’re in! The Holy Spirit is already starting to clean up! Let’s see how many no trespassing signs we can take down!” “Let’s see how many dark places we can light up.”
About that beaver; He is back at the lodge telling the little ones a bed time story about his latest dangerous mission, driving away a terrible threat to the beaver kingdom and their way of life. The little beavers ah… in unison as he brings out a piece of a canoe paddle and lays it on the mantel.
Truth: 1) I took a picture of an angry beaver, he followed me everywhere and ruined my fishing, and I have a bit of an imagination sometimes.
2) God is light, we are not.
3) If there is light in us; it’s Jesus himself shining through us (that’s a lot of lumens).
4) I really was catching a lot of crappies till that beaver started stalking me!
              Gary D

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