The Best and Worst of Times

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of skepticism,
it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way
—in short, the period was so far like the present period…

These are the opening words from Charles Dickens’ classic novel A Tale of Two Cities. This passage is viewed as one of the most famous in all of English literature. While I haven’t read the entire book, I have seen this text referenced many times for the “parallelism” that he is using - good/bad, light/dark, hope/despair etc… I received a missionary update this week where the passage was cited and it spoke to me on a few different levels.

The last month or so in our country has been very heavy with the situation in Afghanistan and the 20th anniversary of 9/11. These events, along with other current events in our culture that we all see day in and day out, remind us of the presence of darkness in this world. It’s easy sometimes for each of us to be negatively affected by these events and issues. We see things that make no sense to us, go against our Biblical view of the world and are even hostile to the way that we want to live our lives. I don’t want to minimize any of these realities; however, it’s also important that we maintain a proper perspective of “the present period.”

I love a summer project. This summer my project was studying 1 Samuel and preparing to teach it in Sunday School over the next few years. One thing that is always apparent when you read the Old Testament, is the presence of both good and evil. The events of 1 Samuel occurred about 3000 years ago - about 40 generations before us. The book is chock full of great history, stories and characters.

It’s interesting to learn about the lives of these people that lived so long before us. One of the biggest takeaways from my study is that they struggled with the very same issues that we do - fear, anger, discontentment, envy, pride, unbelief etc… Thus, its very apparent that the existence of sin is no more or less prevalent then than it is right now. There are many awful things that occurred back in Biblical times and there are many that occur today. Even though it is easy sometimes to think that these days have so much evil (and they do,) God’s presence through His people in this world is also alive and well.

Our relationship with God brings out the best in us and the existence of sin exposes our worst. Studying human character helps us see that this has always been the case - and always will. There is plenty to see out there - both good and bad. It’s the best of times and also the worst, as it is with every era in human history. There will come a day for all Christians when the best will last forever. Until then…

Stay hungry,

Big E

Matt. 5:6