For those who have fallen victim to someone’s shortsightedness, selfishness, pride and arrogance, don’t abandon the One who suffered for our deliverance from such places. Jesus brings life, He gives hope, He is truth. Don’t let people get in your way to all that He has in store for you.

My wife and I were traveling late one moonless night. We were far away from any lights or civilization. The road we were on was totally empty of any other traffic. It was dark. The kind of dark that almost devours light making a car’s headlights seem dim. We were traveling slowly because of the low visibility when suddenly a shape and a face flashed before us.

A friend of mine was in the hospital facing a grim diagnosis. Though it was something she could have fought, her mind was so clouded with conspiracies she didn’t have any ground to stand on. I visited her on one of her dark days. She was striking out against the doctors and even against her husband for she thought they were all trying to kill her. With eyes wide, she was pleading for anyone to take her side.

In the mountains of Tennessee, I climbed down into a dark crevice that opened up in the side of a 300 foot drop off. There were no guard rails, no stairs, and the bottom of the crevice angled toward the drop. A woman came down behind me and within moments froze. Her arms and legs locked which lifted her off of the safe seating she had. Her breathing became panicked with short gasps and unintelligible words came from her mouth.

We pulled off the road to figure out what just happened. I knew I didn’t hit anything but with the form and face came a cry. I stepped out of the car telling my wife to lock the doors and get into the driver’s seat. I walked back to find that the shape turned out to be an African lady who had been trapped on that road with a flat tire for who knows how long. She was beyond reasoning so I told her I was going to get my wife to help her.

I tried to reason with my friend, telling her that God is with her. And we have confidence in His goodwill toward us. That her disease was nothing compared to His power. I tried to slowly give her ground that was more solid than the shadowy conspiracies filling her mind.

I pulled myself back up to the woman behind me and stood in front of her face blocking any view of the opening and the drop and told her to breathe.

My wife gave her a hug while I put on the spare. She told her what I was doing and what the plan was which slowly calmed her down. My wife gained a little bit of her trust, but not enough to exchange phone numbers. As soon as the spare was on, she was off without even a goodbye.

I saw a break in the wave of hysteria when I began to talk to her about Jesus. I didn’t ask any questions, I didn’t want to hear her speak. I saw in her eyes a glimmer of determination. It was enough.

The woman began to breathe more normally and she sat back down for a moment before I guided her to turn around and head back out.

Each of these moments revealed to me the truth of how love drives out fear. Love got the lady with the flat moving again. Love dispelled the shadows attacking my friend. Love turned the woman around who was facing the drop. We are loved in the most perfect way through Jesus. 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love.” And we are always in His love.

These days, our society seems saturated with fear. Laws are written because of it, airports have to sift through it, even our cars are being made with the technology to fight against it. It is in these days that Christians stand out, and it’s not because of hate that they do. It is because of love and the lack of fear that dominates everyone else’s lives.

Walk in the power that is yours followers of Jesus. Fear is the ocean. Let us show this world who is the Lord as we follow Him on top of the waves.

-Brian Carter

The school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary changed my prayer life. Back then, the road I drove to and from work was loaded with schools. I prayed for each one of them and thought of all the children, what kind of homes they come from, if they’ve ever been shown kindness let alone love. If they knew Jesus. What kind of futures the Lord has in store for them.

My prayers changed focus daily, sometimes I’d pray for the innocent ones, other times I’d pray for the ones considering murder and suicide. But then, as I got into it more on a daily routine, I began to feel the Spirit direct me to pray solely for the Christians that attend the schools. Their presence carrying His, their witness dispelling darkness. Then I began to pray that the schools would be blessed and would have the best year in their history because of the Christians. That it would be seen how the Lord blesses those places because His followers are there. That even those who target Christianity and try to shut the school doors on Jesus would find that they would rather He be in the schools than locked out.

Honestly, I’d get rather passionate in my prayers and every time I thought of those kids taken so cruelly and so tragically early, my prayers got fierce. I began to envision the plans of the Lord overwhelming those of the enemy. Light flooding the schools so much that all forms of evil had to leave.

Then by the next year, I had moved. The schools may or may not have had their best year, but I knew a new door had been opened in my
heart. “Do not hinder them,” Jesus said.

When I would pick up my kids from preschool, I made it a point to know as many names as I could, give high 5’s, and ask how each were doing. That was not me before.

Love is too important to keep quiet. Love is too vital to life, our kids need to know it. It is THE way to not hinder them. The enemy wants to take their lives no matter how he can whether before they’re born or after, and I wanted to do what I could to show that Love wins.

If the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these, then they are royalty, all of them.

God bless our children.

-Brian Carter

On top of my hill where I grew up, huge houses were being built. The land I hiked through was being sold off piece by piece. Today, it’s pretty much all gone with the only remnants of the forest I grew up in are tucked away in plush backyards. But back then, when the builders were just getting started, there were finished roads that lead to dead ends with lamps that lit everything up at night. It was eerie and beautiful in a classy ghost town sort of way. I claimed the main entrance as my meeting place with God. I would go up there and pray and play. I was a kid and everything was an adventure especially with God. Every car that came by was some kind of sentry bent on capturing me, so I would hide in the nearby pine trees until they passed. Every night was so exciting, I loved it.

One night when I was talking with God I noticed the cracks in the pavement. I told Him that I knew that there are many paths in this life like the many cracks with branches that lead in all directions. I followed them as I prayed confessing in my spirit and by my mouth that I didn’t want to stray from His paths. I knew that only He was the Way the Truth and the Life. I would do my best to hold true as I followed the crack that lead to the nearest lamppost. It was then that I heard His response.

Light and Darkness has always held a lot of wonder for me. I liked to think about them because it was easy to slip into the mysteries. I would dive into seeing them as the manifestations of good and evil, recognizing their character in their properties, and then stepping to the side and seeing them as mere companions in this life both holding true to their functions as tools for our experience. But this night, He wanted to show me something more that has forever changed my eyes.

When following the cracks to the Light, I noticed darkness following me. In my heart that night with my desire to be true to what He has shown me, I saw the darkness as a remnant of the Fall. My face to the lamppost, I knew the darkness to be my shadow, my fallen nature. My shadow, always following me, reminding me of my inability to rid myself of my sinfulness.

It was then that He stopped me, I turned around and saw that when I was distant from the light, it was hard to see the details of my shadow. It blended into the surrounding darkness, the world, and its ways. In that distance, my shadow was barely noticeable. I didn’t stand out. It was almost comforting, but for the burning within my chest to turn around and run to the lamp. Mystery 1 revealed.

When I did, and I came closer to that revealing light, the Spirit whispered to me again to turn and look. I did and saw that my shadow was much more distinct, my shame that much more visible. O how I felt the fear-filled desire to turn back to the darkness and hide. I almost did, but then He drew me closer. I’d be lying if I denied the pain that every step brought to my heart. My shadow became blacker and blacker, thick, almost tangible. Then finally I stood at the base of the lamppost. Mystery 2 revealed.

This was it, the closest I could come to the light of His presence. Forever excluded because of the shadow that I couldn’t escape from. I was left with this black hole at my feet, the light just above me, and out of reach. It was useless, hopelessness began to creep in. I pleaded with God that it wasn’t my fault, science says that my physical mass is blocking the light’s rays, that my shadow is only there because of my existence. So really it was a good thing… He wouldn’t let me step to the side just yet. He began to remind me of the Scriptures that say we who believe in Christ are called Children of Light (Ephesians 5). Because of our faith, we are the “light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). I then began to see that the only way to be rid of my shadow is to lose my physical body, my old self (Ephesians 4) and become the Light by clothing myself with Him. Mystery 3 revealed.

With this revelation in my mind, I began to leap around with joy. I began to talk to my shadow, telling it that its grip on my life was gone. Though I may still have a shadow to this day, in the mysteries, Jesus made a way for me to be free and draw near to God in a way impossible to man. Free of darkness, free of the taint of the Fall, free from that which so easily entangles (Hebrews 12:1).

Oddly enough, after that night, the cracks no longer mattered. My previous world of following as best I could didn’t hold me anymore; that was what shadows do. It became only about being in the Light, being the Light and helping others who are lost. Because frankly, no matter what people say, no one can see out there, out there in the darkness.

-Brian Carter