Of Whiskey Wars and Wholeheartedness
Hans Island is a small, uninhabited rock in the Arctic’s Nares Strait, situated directly between Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Greenland (an autonomous territory of Denmark). For nearly 50 years, it was at the center of a quirky little territorial dispute known as the “Whisky War.”
Both Canada and Denmark laid territorial claim to this seemingly useless hunk of rock floating in those artice waters. Yet, it wasn't quite worth taking up arms over. Instead, each nation would periodically lay claim to the island by raising their flag there, and then good humoredly leaving a bottle of their nation's finest whiskey as a consolation prize for the other country having been "conquered."
The standoff ended peacefully in June 2022, when Canada and Denmark finally agreed to split the island roughly in half, creating a new land border between the two nations.
In the spiritual realm, God is endlessly in a tug of war with the world for your heart. He is not happy to settle for half. He is not willing to compromise for a portion.
In the war for territorial rights to your heart, Jesus wants it all!
"Jesus said unto him, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with ALL thy heart, and with ALL thy soul, and with ALL thy mind'" (Matthew 22:37, KJV).
"And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 11:19, ESV).
"Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name" (Psalm 86:11, ESV).
Reflecting the Light - It All Comes Down to Proximity
The Moon does not make its own light. Moonlight is actually reflected sunlight. We always see the same face of the Moon from Earth - the “lunar nearside.” Each month, as day and night sweep across the lunar nearside, the sunlit part of our view takes on a series of familiar shapes: crescent, half-moon, full, and more.
According to NASA:
Overall, only about one-tenth of the sunlight that hits the Moon is reflected back into space. This ration of reflected light is called albedo. For comparison, our watery planet bounces about three-tenths of incoming rays back into space. Venus has an even higher albedo than Earth, reflecting half of the sunlight that reaches it. Yet, the Moon outshines Venus in our sky.
Why? It is all comes down to proximity. The Moon is far closer to us than Venus so the Moonlight - the reflection of the Sun’s light - appears brilliant to us.
John the Witness, via his devotion to Jesus, was able to show the way to the Light because of his proximity both to the Light and to those to whom he witnessed. Our proximity to the Light and others affords us the same opportunity to likewise direct others to Light of Jesus.
Jesus is the Light (uppercase "L"). Jesus' disciples (us!) are the light (lowercase "l") called to reflect the Son. As we draw closer to Him, and then and draw closer to those to whom we would share that Light, we are able to do just that. His Light will shine brilliantly to all those who are in darkness.
It all comes down to proximity.
"He [John] was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light" (John 1:8).
Feeding on the Word of God
A practical illustration of feeding on the word of God:
Make a Bible out of fondant icing and marzipan. Try to make it look like your own Bible. I have a small brown leather-look Bible, so I used a block of marzipan and made the cover out of chocolate fondant icing. I had a whole pile of Bibles - illustrating the many types available to suit each person and their need. the fondant one was on the top of the pile and the congregation assumed it was a real Bible.
I then explained the importance of reading the Bible, as important as feeding ourselves every day. I picked the fondant bible up and emphasized how good the Bible is - kind of delicious, before taking a large bite out of it - to the sound of gasps and then laughs.
It really got the point home. A word of advice though - you need to take a break from speaking after biting the Bible, although the delay in returning to speaking gave the congregation time to take it in...
The Bible is satisfying, it feeds our souls. We need a regular diet of it - not an occasional snack.
"How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" (Psalm 119:103).