A Devilish Shadow

A Devilish Shadow

          When we see our shadow on the wall how do we react? Do we run for soap and water to wash it off? Do we paint the wall to cover it up? Do we fear it and run from it? Maybe we stand our ground and fight it? I surely hope not.

          We don’t hate or love a shadow. We generally don’t even notice our shadow at all. If we do we probably ignore it. We are aware that it has no existence without us. It can’t move unless we do, it can’t harm us, it can’t help us. It has no density, no substance, no power, no presence, it virtually is nothingness. Why am I telling you all this? Because I want to make a point.

          The devil-Satan and all of the things that they represent-evil, poverty, sin, disease, pain and death have no more Reality then a shadow on the wall! I have made the statement and I am sticking to it-even though I know that you have your reasons to believe I’m wrong. I could be. I’ll state my case and you be the judge.

1) God is one God, infinite and perfect, and can’t become finite and imperfect. Would this intelligence create something to war with Himself? Does evil proceed from good?

2) The Bible talks of evil and gives it a name Satan, the devil, the prince of darkness. Also it is called a lie, error, hypnotism and the opposite of Truth. Yet the Bible does not describe any form.

3) Satan tempted Jesus. Could Jesus see his tempter? Was it a form? A being? An entity? Was it the human doubt in his own mind? Was it the choice he had to make of either rejecting or accepting the ministry of love? Whatever it was it couldn’t coax, or force Jesus to follow the stupid directions that it suggested. Jesus simply told Satan to get out of his sight and put the devil completely out of his mind as if the devil had never existed.

4) Did God create Satan to tempt man and then punish man for sins God made man capable of committing and knew from the onset that man would? No! “God is of purer eyes then to behold evil.”

5) If not God created is Satan self-created? If that was true that would make Satan a creator and a power on a level with God. Two Gods? No! That never happened! Jesus said of evil-Satan, that it is a lie and has no truth in it. Not God created! Not self-created! It has no more power or threat than the shadow on your wall.

6) Just because men have feared the devil and passed that fear down to their children doesn’t make it true. If…God did not create it…it does not exist and has no more power or appeal to tempt, coax, allure, excite, tantalize, or force you to sin then your superstition will allow. 

          There are a lot things that children believe in that don’t exist both good and bad. Ghosts, monsters, the bogy-man, the sandman, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, and Santa Clause was hard to give up. As adults we have left childish beliefs behind. Except for the myth of an evil power opposed to God. God is the only power and that power is all good. It is time for us to grow up and quit fearing the shadow on the wall, regardless of the form that it seems to take. It still remains a lifeless shadow.

 

          597 words                Loretta Ellen Edwards