Sweet and Sour

12.29.11

Revelation 10.10-11 10 I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. 11 Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.” NIV

The Gospel is that of good news and bad news. The Good News is good news. But there is plenty of bad news out there too. The good news is: there is good news. And despite all the bad news abounding, there is, in fact, good news. The problem is the bad news. At least the problem is the bad news needs to be dealt with and cannot (at least indefinitely) be ignored.

The scroll that John was given and instructed to eat was good news in that it tasted as sweet as honey in his mouth. But after he’d eaten it, his stomach turned sour. I don’t like a sour stomach. I don’t even like the term: sour stomach. The sweet was the good news and the sour was the bad news.

Part of me wants to say, the good news is: you’ve won a million dollars. The other part of me wants to say, the bad news is: you’ve won a million dollars. I know someone who has just been awarded a seventy-five thousand dollar settlement. Right now, today at this moment, seventy-five grand sounds like a lot of money. But at the end of the day, seventy-five k doesn’t seem to go a long way. Heck, with the price of bread at the store, seventy-five thousand ain’t really that much at all. Good news is good news but it must be taken in the light of the bad news.

John was told he was to “…prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings." In other words, he had good news to tell them but they would probably receive it as bad news. The effect of good news on bad souls is sometimes shocking – to the point of discomfort. Maybe even radical discomfort. But bad souls need good news to become good souls. And once a bad soul becomes regenerated into a good soul, there often is the fallout of the residue of the bad soul. Sometimes there can be restitution – sometimes you just gotta live with the consequences of what you’ve done.

I was up at 3:44 this morning taking care of the amount of water I’d had last night before I went to bed. As I tended to water-closet duties, I heard a voice and realized it was my son, in his room, talking to someone via the X-Box and I quickly and abruptly dispatched him to bed. I then went back to bed and began to wonder who he was talking to and then every bad thought about every bad soul began to flood my mind. I then began to think about my present employment and its demands on my time. I then began to think about my son and his needs and every bad soul out there, and finally as I prayed, I cried out: LORD, HELP ME!!

You see, we (you and I and everyone else (bad souls included)) need the Lord. We cannot live our lives effectively without Him. That is both good and bad news. That is both sweet and bitter. That is both hurtful and healing. Coming to the Lord for rescue is like being pulled through a knot-hole backwards: there’s only room for you and it’s gonna hurt like heck! John, what you’re about to do is going to hurt and help people. They’re just gonna have to get past the hurt and you’re just gonna have to be tough in administering the good news. So today, my question is: do I have the stomach for what life is going to serve me and can I (will I) cling to the Lord to pull me through?