Today’s Bright Spot

impacthoustonchurch – April 6, 2020 1 Comment

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

   1 Corinthians 2:9                                                              

by Jim Delony

A professor entered the classroom and told his students to prepare for a pop quiz. The pupils sat and nervously waited as the teacher walked by each desk and placed the test paper face down. He then told them to turn the test paper over, and the students quickly noticed that the paper only contained one black dot centered on the page. The professor then told them they would have ten minutes to study the page and then record their observations.

At the end of the allotted time he collected the papers and to the relief of all 18 students stated that he was not going to grade the results. He did, however, begin to read each short entry aloud, and and they discovered every single student had tried to reason why the black dot was there, what problems it might represent, and how those conditions might be dealt with.

It was then that the teacher wisely asked why they had all chosen to address the evils of one small, dark spot when the rest of the page was unblemished, pure, and white. He questioned their propensity to look for problems, and noted how small the black dot really was. Why couldn’t, he asked, the white area be the foreground instead of the background? Why couldn’t the much larger white area provide confidence, hope, and a measure of faith, and make the the black dot seem relatively insignificant by comparison? It seems it is human nature to notice and even search for the darkness, when answers and truth are there in the (much greater) light.

As the world deals with the tragedies of a virus gone wild, perhaps we can look past this evil dot and concentrate on the white pages upon which the promises of God are written. Blessings and peace!