I Rant, and preach a lot about how we don't need to change. About how God loves us just the way we are. But it's pretty clear that we DO change, isn't it? I'm not who I was ten years ago. I'm a completely different person. Not because I'm TRYING to be different... but just because I'm learning and growing every day. See, it's not that a change is required. It's that a change took place. On the cross. And that change is being revealed to us--and in us, and through us--as we partake of this never ending journey of a everlasting life. And make no mistake, a change took place. A big change. From death to life. Before the cross we WERE dead in our trespasses and sins. We were under the power of darkness. We couldn't see clearly, and so we stumbled around trying to do the best we could with what we had. The problem was that we didn't KNOW what we had. We were trying to do in order to be. And that is nothing but a receipe for disaster. We were trying to be someone we weren't. Trying to CHANGE from "evil" to "good." Trying to be like God. But, as we well know, we were already like God. Made in His image. The change that needed to happen--that happened on the cross--was that we were CONFORMED to the image of God's Son. Jesus came to SHOW US the Father. To show us... ourselves. So the "change" isn't change at all. It's a revelation of the change that took place. And it's a journey. Look at Colossians 1:10 in the NLT, "Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better." Learning and growing. That's the most important thing. That's what I stress with MY son, and I believe that is what the Father wants to stress with us. (Not stressing out about it, of course. But walking--step by step--in faith.) Learning and growing. Maturing. BEING who we are even as we discover who we are. And we discover who we are by discovering who Jesus is. He is the Truth. What's true about Jesus is true about you. He is our true identity. The inner man. The hidden man of the heart. He is the love that fills us to overflowing, and flows out naturally. So when we speak of things like perfection, and maturity, completeness... we have to understand that we are starting at the end. We ARE complete in Him. We ARE perfect, and mature. Even as we learn what it MEANS to be complete, and perfect, and mature. When we look in the mirror with an unveiled face we see the glory of God and we are changed into that same image FROM glory TO glory. We start at glory. We start at perfect. Then we learn what it means to BE perfect, as we learn about the perfect one. Psalm 37:37 spells it out, "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace." We don't TRY to change. We simply mark the perfect man and SEE the change that took place! That's the maturation process. That's how we BE who we are. Not by trying to be someone we're not. But by learning and growing!

I started this Rant series with the idea that there were two forces at work: Love and fear. But really that's only accurate to the point that you believe in fear. Only accurate to the point that you LET IT be accuracte. Because God is all-powerful. LOVE is all-powerful. And that doesn't mean "most powerful." That doesn't mean He has the most power but something else has some power. No, it means He has ALL of the power. Perfect love doesn't struggle with fear. It casts out fear. I'm convinced that one of the biggest things that holds us back from receiving and manifesting everything that's available to us is this idea of duality. Good vs evil. Love vs fear. The Truth vs the lie. We act and operate as if there is a struggle going on and the outcome is in doubt. Guys... it is finished. On the cross we were translated out of the power of darkness and into the Kingdom of God's dear Son. The lie was defeated when the Truth was made plain. The light of the world shined ON us, and He shined IN us, and now He shines THROUGH us. Jesus won the war to end all wars. Which means (by definition) there are no more wars. The fight the New Testament talks about is the good fight of FAITH. Laying hold of eternal life. Not earning it, because it is a gift and cannot be earned, but laying hold of it. Receiving it and releasing it. Receiving it BY releasing it. Not trying to get somthing because we're afraid we don't have anything. And not trying to keep something to ourselves because we're afraid if we give what we've got we'll lose what we've got. Let me equate this to rest--which is NOT inactivity, being afraid to step out and walk in faith, but is simply Holy Spirit directed activity. If you're tormenting yourself, stressing yourself out, worrying about everything under the sun, it's hard to get a good night's sleep. Hard to rest. But if you know the Truth, the Truth sets you free and makes you free. Free to live that abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life by letting Jesus live it in you, and through you, and as you! Love is fearless. Love is natural. It's the most natural thing in the world. Human nature is not the selfish beast nature, it is the selfless love nature. That's what God gave us when He gave us His Son. When Jesus gave His life for us, and gave His life TO us. He gave us His Spirit. His nature. He gave us the love receptor, so we could know the truth--the Daddy loves us, always has and always will--and so we could partake of His Divine Nature and His life of love! Nothing else matters. Nothing else has any power. We don't have to listen to the lie, when we know and believe the truth. When we are planted on the Rock, we cannot be shaken. What I'm trying to say is... fear has no power. So you don't have to be afraid. Love has all the power. So when we talk about being seated at the right hand (the power position) of God in Christ Jesus, we're talking about being strong in the Lord and the power of His might. We're talking about the joy of the Lord being our strength. Talking about... love! Not about punishing our "enemies" but about destroying our enemies by making them our friends. Loving people not in order to get something, but because we have something. That's what REAL love is. Perfect love. And perfect love casts out (casted out) all fear! It's not a battle, or a struggle. Love wins. Love WON. And now we are equipped and empowered to follow the New Commandment by recieving and releasing that love!

They say more is lost by indecision than wrong decision. And that's the torment of fear. Fear keeps us paralyzed. It keeps us from doing anything. It keeps us locked up in our heads, unable to move. Unable to walk in faith. It keeps us stuck in a rut. And my pastor taught me a rut is nothing more than a grave with the ends kicked out. Fear is the opposite of love. And since life IS love--to live is to love and to love is to live--then fear is death. Life is living, and moving. Learning and growing. Making mistakes, sure, but learning from those mistakes. The only true failure is failing to try. And that, unfortunately, is where a lot of us are. We're afraid to even try. We think of everything that could go wrong, and we don't even image that anything could go right. We know that there is abundace available to us--handed down from a loving Father to His beloved Son--but we're afraid to lose what we've got. Even while we lament that fact that we don't seem to have anything. I'm telling you right now: Love is not lost when it's given away. It feeds on itself and it grows and grows like a Holy Ghost wildfire. When Jesus was hungry and sent His disciples to go get food, then had an encounter with a woman at the well, His disciples came back to find that He was no longer hungry. When they questioned Him He had this to say, "...I have a kind of food that you know nothing about" (John 4:32 NLT). And when they questioned that, "...Jesus explained: "My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work" (John 4:34 NLT). He gave what He had and it nourished both the woman AND Himself. Because when you love someone you're not really giving anything AWAY. You're simply SHARING what you have. You know the old phrase, "If you don't use it, you lose it"? Well in the Kingdom you "gain" it BY using it! You find your life by laying it down for your friends. You experience love by loving others. You don't have to be afraid of losing what you've got because you're connected to the source. The unlimited supply. I started this Rant series by saying there were, in a sense, two forces, or powers, in the world. And while I don't want to get ahead of myself because this is where I want to end tomorrow, I want to say that REALLY there is only ONE power. Love. God is ALL POWERFUL. Which doesn't mean He has most of the power and someone (or something) has less power. It means there is NO OTHER POWER. That's why perfect love CASTS out fear. That's why when the light shines the darkness has no choice but to flee. But, again, that's tomorrow's Rant. For today, what I'm trying to say is, love is fearless. Love doesn't sit idly by. Rest is not inactivity. Rest is Holy Spirit directed activity. And what else would the Holy Spirit--the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of love--ever direct us to do other than love one another? What's the New Commandment? Love one another as Jesus loves us. What's it all about? It's all about love. So don't be afraid. Because you ARE loved. And because you ARE loved you CAN love. Because you ARE loved... you are LOVE!

This is from the book Dune, "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." Love and fear. Whatever you magnify is what manifests. But notice this: We don't hide from fear. (Even though it seems like the natural response.) We don't stick our head in the sand and pretend everything is hunky dory when it's not. We don't ignore the facts. We simply acknowldge the truth. We stand on the Rock and we are not shaken. We face our fears. And what is the biggest (only real) fear? That we are not loved. That we will never be loved. That's we're not good enough. That no matter how hard we try to grab the carrot, the stick will always move just out of our reach. And, I gotta say, that's exactly what happens in religion. In man-centered, performance based, do in order to be religion there's always one thing you lack. As soon as you get one thing under control, something else slips through your fingers. Why? Because we don't control love. Christ's love controls us. It's not about external things. Not about what you do. It's about internal things. The Holy Spirit filling you up INSIDE. It's about what you believe. Because what you do flows from what you believe. You can't fix what you do until you address what you believe. Until you understand that he that is born of God CANNOT sin. When that revelation really grips you you'll stop struggling with sin. And what is sin but unbelief? Believing the lie instead of the truth. Love and fear right? Whatever is not of faith is sin. Faith is knowing and believing the Word (Jesus, love) of God. So I guess, in a sense, I'm saying being afraid is a sin. But guys, that's WHY a believer can't sin! Because perfect love casts out fear. When we know and believe that we are loved... then we have nothing to be afraid of. When we face our fears and see them for what they are--a lie... a powerless lie--then we can ignore them. Not in the sense of sticking our head in the sand, but in the sense of laying aside the weight and the sin that so easily besets us. In the sense of not bringing our problems to God, but bringing God to our problems. Addressing things that need to be addressed, but rather than trying to "fix them" ourselves... we cast our cares on Him, because He cares for us. We trust Daddy to take care of things. Why? Because He loves us. We trust in love. And that's what PERFECT love is. Because God loves you regardless. He always has and He always will. But my pastor always says that in a very real way it's not the truth that sets you free... it's the truth you KNOW that sets you free. There's so much LIFE (abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life) available to us. But if we don't know it... if we're afraid it's not for us, or it's for some time in the future... then we won't lay hold of it. We won't experience it or enjoy it. It's not until our fear has gone past that we can see it's path. And then we will see what remains. Perfect love casts out fear. And then only love remains. Only WE remain!

Nothing will hold you back like fear does. Worry. Stress. These things can literally make you sick. The mind effects the body. In earth as it is in heaven. And the biggest fear we have is that we're unloveable. Why do you think Eve was so eager to swallow the serpent's lie? It spoke right to her heart. When the sepent hissed in her ear and told her she had to do in order to be... well of course! It made perfect sense to her carnal mind. Of course I'm not good enough. Of course I have to earn the love and acceptance and understanding that I crave. All of her fears were being reinforced. The things she already believed were being confirmed. But here's the key to all of that: The serpent was LYING! We were made in God's image. We never had to do anything to be like Him. We were already like Him. And let me do this the way I always do it. We were made in LOVE'S image! We never had to do anything to be like LOVE. We were already like LOVE. Trying to do in order to be--because we were afraid that we weren't--is how we got all mixed up and messed up. That's how Adam got us into all that trouble with sin and death--not by disobeying God and making God mad so that God had to punish us, but by stepping out of the finished work and trying to do it through our own human effort. Trying to earn something that can't be earned. The gift of God (eternal life, knowing the Father and the One whom He sent) is... well... a gift. And you can't earn a gift. If you have to earn it, it's not a gift. A gift can't be earned, only received. But, again, therein lies the problem. We don't think we deserve such an amazing gift. We look at ourselves--and since we're always with ourselves we see the good, the bad, and the ugly--and we think, "There's no way God could love me." And then we list all the "evil." Or, if we're really feeling frisky we weigh the evil against the good and try to come out on the good side. But there's always that fear. That fear that we're NOT good enough. That the evil outweighs the good and we're taking the down elevator instead of the up elevator. (Again, for the record, I don't believe that's even close to how "the afterlife" works.) You can't have a real relationship with someone you're afraid of. You'll always run FROM God instead of running TO God. Just like Adam and Eve did. They hid from His presence. He didn't leave nor forsake them. But they were afraid that He was going to punish them. Remember our key verse? 1 John 4:18. I only want a snippet of it for today. "...because fear has torment..." That's not God punishing us or tormenting us in a fiery hell someday after we die. That's US tormenting OURSELVES with stress, and worry, and fear. That's us holding ourselves (and God) back because we're afraid to step out of our comfort zones. Afraid to walk in faith. We let what we see with our natural eyes--the surface stuff, the outer court, outer man, actions and circumstances stuff--keep us bound up in fear. Afraid to believe what we know is true. Because what if it doesn't work? But let me ask you this (and to some this may be even more scary) what if it does? What if we CAN have everything that we've been freely given? What if all we have to do is stop being afraid and just believe...? It could be good. Could even be more excellent...

I think there are two "forces" in the universe. Love and fear. NOT love and hate. Because according to 1 John 4:18, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." And really, these two "forces" could be described as belief and unbelief. Either you know (and believe!) that you are loved, or you don't know it, and you're afraid you're not loved. "Either way, Christ's love controls us..." (2 Corinthians 5:14 NLT). Love is what it's all about. What it all comes down too. Either we do everything we do because we're trying to get love... or we do everything we do because we know (and believe) that we have love. Either we operate from a place of lack (fear), or a place of abundance (love). An abundant life--the life that Jesus came that we might have... the life that Jesus gave us when He gave His life for us and gave His life to us--is a life that's full of love. That's WHY it's abundant. Light and darkness. Seeing love everywhere you look, or groping around trying to find it. Life and death. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death" (1 John 3:14). Love is the difference. Love is what casts out fear. Love makes us bold. And that can seem a little bit counterintuitive, because on the surface love seems scary. Love makes you vulnerable. In order to love you have to put yourself out there. You have to give yourself. Lay your life down. And I think the biggest fear is that if I give myself... and don't get anything back... I won't have anything. I'll be empty. But guys... how could you ever "run out" of love when you're connected to the source? When the God who IS love lives inside you? In Him we live and move and have our being. In LOVE we live and move and have our being. And in us HE lives and moves and has His being. In us LOVE lives and moves and has His being! Love isn't just what we do... love is who we are. And when you be who you are, you don't run out of who you are. You strengthen yourself in who you are. Like muscles. They don't go away when you use them. They get bigger. When David "encouraged himself in the Lord" (1 Samuel 30:6), he was facing a scary situation. The people wanted to stone him. He was afraid, and he turned to the Lord. He didn't run FROM Daddy, he ran TO Daddy. Isn't it funny that we try to use God as a boogie man in order to get people to behave? As if we don't understand that the GOODNESS of God leads men to repentance. As if we don't see God telling us to "be not afraid" over and over and over again. The love of Christ controlling us has nothing to do with God scaring us. It has everything to do with Him, well, loving us. Perfect love can't cast out fear AND use fear. So I guess what I'm trying to say is... if you're scared of God--if you think He's going to "get you" every time you mess you--then you're not seeing Him clearly. He's not mad at you. He's mad about you. He's not scary. He's angry. He's gentle. He's kind. He's happy. He's... love. How you think about love is how you think about God. If you think you don't have it (Him) then you'll always try to get it. But works and labor don't work. If you know you have it (Him) then you'll share it, because it's too good to keep to yourself, and you won't be afraid of losing it by giving it away!

When things line up in Divine Order things really start to flow. Perception--what we see--Perspective--how we see it--and Priority--what we do about it--are the Three P's. And if any one of them are out of whack it can really throw a wrench in the works. It can really get us mixed up, confused. Focused on the wrong thing. Running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, trying to finish a work that is already finished. Trying to be someone we're not. Or, worse yet, trying to get other people to be someone they're not. I'm telling you, your job is not to change. The change took place on the cross when we were conformed into the image we were originally created in. Change doesn't need to happen. It already happened. What needs to happen is that we need to SEE the change that happened. We need to SEE things correctly. In ourselves first--because charity starts at home--and then in each other. We need to see through the eyes of grace. The eyes of love. And we need to see things from a perspective other than our own. "Walk a mile in somone else's shoes." If you see where they're coming from, you can see where they're going. You can understand them. And with understanding comes acceptance. When "change" isn't the priority, love can be! When we're not judging each other, but instead embracing each other, that's when we connect on that deep level. That love level. The Jesus in me connecting to the Jesus in you. That's when God's Divine Order manifests. That's when the Kingdom manifests! Not when we try to bring earth to heaven, but when we let heaven come to earth. When we stop trying to get somewhere someday and start experiencing the days of heaven on earth! When we, as Colossians 3:2 says, "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." The NLT puts it like this, "Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth." What you magnify is what will manifest. Concentrate on all the wrong things and you become that headless chicken again, making mountains out of molehills. Major on the majors, and minor on the minors. Get your priorities straight. Love IS the priority. Love is THE priority. Doesn't it seem ridiculous that we would put "getting closer to God" (whatever that means) before our fellow man? How could we get any closer to God than we already are? He lives inside us. In Him we live and move and have our being. In us He lives and moves and has His being. We are One. We couldn't get any closer if we tried. But not, EXPERIENCING Him is something else altoghether. Because experiencing Him is experiencing love. And how do we experience love? By loving people. How do we love God? By loving people. What is our priority? PEOPLE. When people ask me what I do I always say, "I'm in the people business. The helping business. The love business." Because I see love. That's my perception. I see from the perspective of love. I see as my Daddy sees, because the light that He is (that WE are) shines in me and through me. Grace, mercy, forgiveness. Empathy. This is our priority. Not knocking people down, or condemning them, but building people up and affirming them. You can't love someone you don't accept. And you can't accept someone you can't understand. Your Three P's need to be in alignment. And the only way anything ever lines up is when it lines up with the Word. Jesus. Love!

Priority. What you DO about what you see and how you see it. The culmination. The fullness. Because faith without works is dead, right? All of this thinking, and discussing, and meditating about stuff doesn't really mean a whole lot until you put your money where your mouth is. Love is love but CHARITY is love in ACTION. And that HAS to be our priority. When we see things clearly--because the light of the world is shining--and when we see things from the right perspective--we are all connected and we are all One--then we can start to do. We don't do in order to be. But we do BECAUSE we be. We don't love in order to get. Love is giving. We love because we have. We love because we are. It seems like love is constantly misunderstood. People are always looking for our motvies when we love. But love doesn't HAVE a motive. Love IS the motive. Love IS the priority. Understanding leads to acceptance. And acceptance leads to love. You can't love something (someone) you don't accept. And you can't accept something (someone) you don't understand. In the same way faith and hope lead to love. In the same way perception and perspective lead to priority. I can't tell you how frustrating it can be--if I let it--for some of the things I see that people get so fired up about. I'm constantly asking myself the question, "What in the world are we talking about?" Does it matter? And by "matter" I mean, a year from now. A month from now. Even a week from now. Does it matter in the big picture? In the grand scheme? Are you seeing it correctly? From the right point of view? (And I'm not saying my point of view is right and yours is wrong. I'm saying LOVE is the right point of view.) If you start with love you'll end with love. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. And He's everything in between. But we have to be open to it--love, Him--in order to experience it. In order to manifest it. In order for what's inside to get out. Let me quote a verse that I preached last night: Ephesians 4:3, "Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Key in on that word, "endeavouring." Working. Faith without works. Get it? What you do matters. I know I always preach that it's not what you do, but what you believe. And that's true... because what you do flows from what you believe. But actions have consequences. They matter. What you give your Three T's (Time, Talent, Treasure) to makes a difference. Because that's where your priority lies. Let me simplify this. This is what I tell my four year old son, "If you want to HAVE a friend, you have to BE a friend." If you want to "feel" love... the best way to do it is to GIVE love. What you magnify is what manifests in your life. What you give yourself to is, in a sense, your master. Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit means bearing the fruit of the Spirit. Sharing what we've been given. Loving each other. Making love the only priority. Seeing love everywhere. Seeing from the perspective of love. And putting that love into action. Priority is what goes at the top of the list. The TO DO list. Not just ideas and words... but the Word made flesh. Letting what's inside come out naturally because it's too big, too good, and too glorious to keep inside! Letting love be the ONLY priority...

Perception and perspective (what you see and how you see it) go hand in hand. And they lead to priority. Much in the same way that faith and hope go hand in hand and lead to love. Faith is the subtance of things hoped for. How you see things determines what you see. It's the old idea of "putting yourself in someone else's shoes." Seeing things from THEIR view. Not being self-centered, if I can say it a little roughly. I think too many times we take things personally. And I gotta say... even if it IS personal, you don't have to TAKE it that way. You are not what someone calls you. But you ARE what you answer to. And what someone calls you really says more about THEM than it does about YOU. Because you can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. So if someone hurts you... it's because that's what they have: hurt. So instead of responding in kind (an eye for an eye), "...do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also" (Matthew 5:39 NLT). And even take it a step further, "Instead, "If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads"" (Romans 12:20 NLT). But here's the key: These "burning coals of shame" actually have the effect of melting the "evil person," the "enemy's" heart. Destroying "enemies" by turning them into friends. Killing them with kindness. Seeing them clearly. Understanding that the "evil" they do comes from the "evil" they have. The evil they've experienced. Everyone has been burned at one time or another. But when you see that GOD is a consuming fire, you can see that what was burned was something that you didn't need in the first place. You can see that you are the garden and Jesus is the gardener, and there needed to be some pruning. Some things you believed needed to be chopped away. So that good fruit could come forth. The way you used to see things--black and white, good and evil--are not the way you see things when the light of the world shines. When you see with love you see beauty. Everywhere. In everyone. All the time. That's the perspective of truth. That's seeing things as they really are. When we can see where someone's coming from--when we understand their motives instead of just judging their actions--then we can "love them anyway." Love unconditionally. What I see, wherever I look, are just people. That's my perception. Not "good and evil." We are all One. We are all in this together. It's not "us vs them." It's just "us." And when I see things clearly, my perception changes. I can judge things correctly. Not judging by appearance, but judging righteous judgment. I can get past the surface and dig a little deeper, as the deep calls out to the deep. I can connect with you on that real, true, LOVE level. The Jesus in me and the Jesus in you. And that brings me to the third P; priority. What's important? What deserves my three T's (Time, Talent, Treasure). But that's for tomorrow.

Perception, Perspective, Priority. What you see, how you see it, and what you do with it. These three things define our reality. And it is only when these three things line up correctly--with Jesus, who IS the Way, the Truth, and the Life--that we can begin to manifest the Kingdom of God (righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost) that is within us. To me, this is a practical way of getting what's already in us to come out. So today let's look at perception. And I think I kind of indirectly preach and Rant about this a lot. "What you see is what you be." Seeing things as they really are, instead of judging them by appearance. Because things aren't always what they seem. Remember when we talked about understanding? Not just WHAT someone does, but WHY they do what they do. And here's the key: You can't see clearly unless the light is shining. Now let me link two verses together because I want to make this as plain and as simple as I can: 1 John 1:5 (NLT), "This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all." God is light. We can't see clearly unless we see things in Him and as Him. 1 John 4:8 (NLT), "But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love." God is light. And God is love. Light is love, and love is light. We see things clearly when the light shines. When LOVE shines. We see things clearly when we look through the eyes of grace--the eyes of love. And listen, I'm not talking about rose-colored glasses that make everything look nice. I'm not talking about appearance at all. I'm talking about LOVE-colored glasses that see things as they really are. That see "good, bad, and ugly" and realize there is something higher. Seeing God's love for us in everything and everybody. Seeing the bigger picture. Seeing the more excellent way. I don't know why we do this, but we always seem to see the worst in people. We take things personally, even when they have nothing to do with us. We look for reasons to get upset about things and make mountains out of molehills. And it probably comes from a desire to protect ourselves. We've been burned before and don't want to get burned again. We assume people are out to burn us. So we see villains in every shadow. We can't believe someone would (or could) do that to us. When in fact the person who "slighted us" probably doesn't even have us on their radar. I think it's a rare thing for someone to think about someone else in ANY context. Much less during their decision making process. I think, for the most part, we do things and then justify them later on. I think people do things in order to get love. (Or do things because they HAVE love, but that's much more rare.) So what people do has more to do with themselves than it does with us. So we need to see things as they really are, instead of making things into something they're not. We need to find the love in every situation. It's there. HE'S there. Jesus promised to never leave nor forsake us. He's always there. Sometimes it's just too dark to see Him. Until we realize that He is light, and there is no darkness at all in Him. Untill we realize that when the light shines, the darkness flees. It's not even a battle, or a struggle. The light wins. The light WON. LOVE won! Perception is what you see. Seeing things as they really are. Seeing things as part of the bigger picture. The grand scheme. God's great plan!