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LIGHT FROM A GIDEON BIBLE

Have you ever had an experience where you were in complete confusion and despair? Maybe there was a death in your family. Or you had a huge decision to make — and just had no clue which way you ought to turn. Or — we’ve all had this one — you’ve already made the huge commitment, plunged ahead with it, and now you have this sinking feeling that you chose the wrong path. And it feels like clinical depression — darkness — is just pressing in on you from all sides. It can be scary.

There’s a marvelous Bible verse here in Ephesians 5, and then I have a beautiful story to share. But first, the apostle Paul has this to say to each of us:

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” The King James says: “WALK as children of light.”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 55-plus years of sometimes hard living, it’s that the Christian faith is supposed to bring us into the light. It brings peace. And understanding. And joy.

That takes me to this story of Joy Swift — one of my favorites, which we’ve shared pieces of before on this program. I don’t think we’ve ever told you this part before, though, and it links beautifully to this verse right here. Joy Swift was a barefoot and cheerful Missouri mama who had two baby girls and three older stepkids by the time she was 20 years old. Then one dark night in 1977, while she and her husband George were playing bingo, a neighbor boy named Billy Dyer broke into their house and shot the four youngest children. They called it the crime of the century there in Missouri, and this incredible young lady has gone on and written two bestsellers about the saga.

About two days after this tragedy, she and George were in a local motel as the sheriff’s office still had all that yellow police tape around the house. And you talk about darkness pressing in on all sides. Those kids had been everything to her: Steve and Greg and Tonya and Stacy. And in one horrific moment of violence, they had been taken away.

Late that Saturday night Joy asked George and her parents if they could give her some time alone. They retreated to the adjoining room and finally she was by herself in the darkness.

“I felt like an empty fifty-five gallon drum,” she writes, “cold and hollow. The real me was a tiny speck inside the drum. This tiny speck was screaming for answers, pleading for understanding, but the words only echoed back in the cold, empty space. The outside world was completely shut out. It refused to help me, refused to release me from this prison of grief. ‘God!’ the tiny speck screamed. ‘Please, God! Hear me! I can’t live without my kids! They’re my whole life. What am I supposed to do with myself? I’m a housewife! I can’t survive without them. Don’t You see? I’m not strong enough. I’m trying so hard to be strong, but I can’t be! Please, GOD, help me!’ The tiny voice echoed inside the steel drum, bouncing against the sides, seemingly unheard, unreachable to the outside world.”

And then something almost surreal happened. It was like a hole was punched in that drum, and she began to feel like she was being bathed in warm light. Joy was like a fetus herself in the womb of God’s caring embrace. She actually felt like she could see and feel the four children sitting in her lap one final time, hugging her, comforting her. One of them reached out a tiny finger and wiped away her tears. At least for a moment, the darkness was gone. And a quiet, peaceful voice said to her: “You don’t have to lose them. They are in My hands and I am with you. I will give you My strength to see this through.”

Well, friend, I tell this story carefully, because in a vulnerable moment like that, the mind can play its own mysterious tricks. Was this the kind of light which would stay with a grieving mother, and give her something more lasting than just half an hour of numb comfort on a Saturday night? Let’s have Joy Swift tell the rest of the story in her own words:

“Slowly, peacefully, the children faded away. When I realized they were gone, I turned to search for the voice again. I listened intently to the words it spoke. ‘You will be with them again. You have not lost them. You are only separated from them for a little while. It has all been taken care of. The answers you seek I will show you in My Book. It has all been written down for you.’” Then she adds this: “The voice drifted away. I sat in the darkness, waiting for more. None came. Still I stayed to reflect on the things I’d heard and felt inside. There was no doubt in my mind that it all was real. I had not imagined it. I knew, as I rose from that corner, that God was with me. He would give me the strength for the days to come. I didn’t have to fight this battle alone.” And now get this, friend: “I crossed the room, took the motel Bible from the desk drawer, and carefully opened its pages.”

This grieving young mother had to go through a memorial service and a funeral service — one with four little caskets up on the platform. Three weeks after this, her oldest stepdaughter, Stephanie, the one surviving child, succumbed to cancer. In less than a month, her entire world had collapsed. But Joy Swift kept on reading that Gideon Bible. She was amazed as she studied it to find out how clearly God’s Word promises a reunion to those who are in His family. She was going to see all five of her kids again. She was going to live in a place where guns and cancer and caskets were forever banned. What’s more, this incredible book had counsel on how she could be a good parents when she and George finally regrouped and had more kids. It was a blueprint for families, for marriages, for how to succeed in this hard world. “This is a fantastic book,” she said to herself over and over again. “I didn’t know all this was in here. Why didn’t anybody tell me?” We hear that a lot from people who take our Discover Bible Course here at the Voice of Prophecy. “I never dreamed the Bible taught all of this,” they say in their letters. “Everything I’m grappling with, God’s Word has both the specific answers for right now and the great, broad principles for my whole life.”

Anyway, friend, back to Ephesians 5. Can you see why this story so powerfully illustrates what Paul is saying? This mother was lost in the darkness of despair. As far as she knew, Billy Dyer had taken her children away forever. Then the Bible’s promise of the resurrection came in and restored the light. For years afterward, even reading as she was, she was locked into a pattern of hatred for her children’s killer. Finally, slowly, painfully, she became aware of all that Christianity offered in terms of forgiveness, of trusting the fate of Billy Dyer to God. And the light of letting go, of releasing her anger, helped her and George and three new children to rebuild their family.

We have just a few moments left here today to summarize this great Bible promise, but let me share a few lines from the Tyndale New Testament Commentary.

“Paul brings in one of the most common and most striking New Testament illustrations,” writes Francis Foulkes, “of the absoluteness of the difference between the old heathen life and the life ‘in Christ.’ ‘God is light’ (I John 1:5). Light expresses His majesty and glory (I Timothy 6:16) and His perfect holiness, but also the truth that He wills to reveal Himself to man (Psalm 43:3). The opposite of that glory and holiness and wisdom of God is darkness, and the world estranged from God dwells in such darkness. Those who have found life ‘in Christ’ are essentially people who have been transferred from the realm of darkness to the realm of light.”

He goes on to point out that the Bible doesn’t just say, “Now you’re IN the light.” Although that is true. No, Paul takes us higher than that. “You ARE light in the Lord,” he writes. “You’re in light, and light is in you.” Dr. Foulkes concludes:

“Again the apostle’s command is, ‘Be what you are. You have become light. You may be called children of light, those whose very nature is light.’ They are to pursue their daily lives” — Joy Swift had to learn this through many tough years — “in accordance with this new nature given to them in Christ, and to express this most effectively the apostle once again uses the word walk. In the light that illuminates the pathway of God’s will, and with light in their hearts, and radiating forth from their lives, they are to go on life’s journey.”

Friend, is it dark where you’re sitting right now? It doesn’t have to stay that way. There’s a Book on your shelf, or maybe in the other room — and when you crack it open, the light just bursts forth. Why not take another look right now?