Make The World Go Away
There was a black bear spotted here in North Mississippi a couple of weeks ago. The bear, which was first spotted in Alabama a couple of weeks earlier, has now made it all the way to Tennessee. The picture on the news showed the bear trying his best to hide in a tree. Poor bear was probably scared to death of the people and the cameras. I guess he wished he could hibernate and make the craziness of this world just go away. But bears don't hibernate in July and even if he could have, the crazy world would not have gone away. The world would have been right outside waiting on him when he came out of hibernation.
This bear is not the first bear in Mississippi. As a matter of fact there once were many here. A black bear hunted in the Mississippi Delta by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 can be thanked for the name of any "teddy bear" you had as a child. The man who led the hunt injured the bear before President Roosevelt got to him. The bear had attacked one of the dogs and the hunter had clubbed him with his gun. The black bear probably would have liked to thank the President who refused to shoot an injured bear. The outcome of the bear isn't told. I hope he got to go into hibernation and escape the crazy world containing hunters on horses with dogs and guns.
Hibernation is something that bears do. They "sleep" through the cold winter. With normal sleep, a bear or any animal moves a little, has an active brain, and can wake up very quickly. With true hibernation, the animal appears dead. There is no movement and it takes a long time for it to wake up enough to even walk around.
Many people would love to sleep like that. Unfortunately, humans don't hibernate, but did you know frogs do?
Frogs hibernate to escape the freezing temperatures of winter. Their heartbeats and breathing slow, their body temperature drops to nearly matching the outside temperature, and they pass the time in a state of dormancy. Aquatic frogs hibernate underwater and take in oxygen from the water through their skin. They spend most of the winter lying on top of the bottom's mud or partially buried in mud. What a way to spend a cold winter...buried in slimy mud. Yuck! I think hibernating bears have it better than hibernating frogs.
Frogs hibernate to escape the freezing temperatures of winter. Their heartbeats and breathing slow, their body temperature drops to nearly matching the outside temperature, and they pass the time in a state of dormancy. Aquatic frogs hibernate underwater and take in oxygen from the water through their skin. They spend most of the winter lying on top of the bottom's mud or partially buried in mud. What a way to spend a cold winter...buried in slimy mud. Yuck! I think hibernating bears have it better than hibernating frogs.
As I said before we humans don't hibernate in this way, dead to the world, not being able to be wakened for months. However, I believe many Christians are deep in a spiritual sort of hibernation. Are you spiritually dead? Many believers have closed their eyes to the truths of God's Word. Many have turned to things of the world in an attempt to make the hurt go away.
Just as the poor bear got clubbed in the head by the hunter, this isn't working to well for Christians. Does someone have to knock us in the head before we see the danger of turning to the world for escape and comfort?
Make the world go away is the name of an old love song by Eddie Arnold. In the song, he speaks to the one he loves and says, "Make the world go away, take it off of my shoulders. Say the things you used to say, and make the world go away."
This is the song we need to be singing to God. He can take the weight of worry and sin from us. He is still speaking the same words He has always spoken to each of us. We just have to wake up and listen.
Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame. I Corinthians 15:34
Now is the time for the time is now closer than ever before when there will be no more time to sleep and dream of how we will live for God someday.
And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. Romans 13:11
Today I plead with each of you to examine your hearts carefully. Are you sleeping? One day soon the world is going to go away as we know it forever. Are you awake and ready for that day, or are you buried in the mud? May we each be fully awake and not drawn away from what we have believed and into perdition (hell). May our souls be saved.
Hebrews 10:35 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. 36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. 37 For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. 38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. 39 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
jbp