Look Up!

Every 4^th of July, my dad would take my brother and me from our home in Los Gatos, California to a part of San Jose where we could buy strings of firecrackers. While the typical 4^th of July fireworks were fun, it was the firecrackers that we loved the most. 

One of our favorite things to do was fill a basin with about an inch of water. We punched a hole in the bottom of an open tin can just large enough to insert a firecracker leaving only the fuse exposed. Then we would set the open end of the tin can in the water and light the fuse. When the firecracker went off, the tin can would launch like a rocket and fly into the air sometimes as much as fifty feet. My brother and I loved watching our neighbors look into the sky and wonder what the Elkins boys were up to now. We especially loved it when the wind carried our airborne tin cans in the direction of a neighbor’s home. There was something strangely satisfying to our still-developing minds knowing that our tin can mortar rounds could land on someone's roof.

For some reason, I recalled that long-ago memory this morning as the dawn was breaking on this July 4^th of 2020. There is a great deal of noise being produced in our culture. Everybody has an opinion and their preferred evidence to support their position. As a result, we are divided and quickly becoming a dismembered nation. The sharing of our diverse opinions is like a string of firecrackers going off at someone’s feet. You don’t know who or what to believe. You just jump in response to all the sounds exploding at your feet.  

We have arrived at a ridiculous place where the evidence used to produce and support some opinions is no longer able to pass the muster of rationality. The Lord is about to change our confusion into clarity. Like a single firecracker rightly prepared in a tin can and water basin, words of truth and their resulting adjustment will be sent into the cultural air for all to see. This launch of truth will be used by God to draw the attention of people away from the noisy confusion long enough for them to come to their senses. 

Look up from all the nonsense being thrown at your feet. Its purpose is to confuse. God is about to reveal what is hidden in all the noise. A single firecracker of truth placed in the right environment will produce dramatic results.