As I sit on our deck today spending some time with God, I can’t help but be distracted by the noise around me. It is the year of the cicada; it sounds more like the year of the alien invasion! This amazing creature has a seventeen-year life cycle. While underground, the nymphs grow and develop, sucking juices from roots, until they reach maturity and emerge into the sunlight. After molting, they become winged adults, and that’s when the racket begins. The noise reverberating through our generally quiet neighborhood is a mating/courting song, sung by the male of the species as he vibrates a membrane on his abdomen. After the eggs are laid by the female and hatched, the nymphs burrow in the ground and the seventeen-year cycles repeats. If it weren’t for those creepy eyes, it would actually amazing, right?
The sound is irritating to me today; it reminds me of the deafening noise that floods our culture, the ugly noise that a wicked, ungodly world makes. “Talk like me, dress like me, think like me, soak up my entertainment, don’t be that weird Christian person.” The sound is overwhelming at times. I witness the dilemma every day, as saved, born-again people try to mimic culture in an attempt to fit in to a world that is not their home. I fight the same battle in my own Christian walk, finding myself sometimes lured by “…all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” But that noise is “not of the Father” but from the father of lies.
Don’t be overwhelmed by the noise of an ungodly world. It is distracting, and maybe even attractive at times. The world may provide happiness for a season, but true joy is the result of a walk with Christ, abiding in Him, living for Him. He calls us to be a peculiar people, salt in an unsavory world, and light that pierces the darkness. He commands us to “…be ye holy; for I am holy.” Be cognizant of the danger in that deafening noise and “be ye separate.”
II Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord…”
I Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light;
Help me, Lord, to be a light in the darkness of this world. Help me to be aware that the noise of the world wants to steal my testimony and my joy. This world is not my home, I am merely a pilgrim on a journey to the Promised Land, so I will never truly fit in here. I am in the world, not of the world, but I want to be a clean witness to this world, leading others to You.