Journey into Lightl pep

I recall listening to a hit song in the early 1970’s by Jackie DeShannon about how this world has achieved about everything but how to love each other. At the time, I was busy helping develop Minuteman Missiles which were the deadliest weapons on the face of the earth. Each missile carried several nuclear warheads capable of destroying whole cities and regions. I was a Development Engineer in the Air Force tasks with helping test the missiles to ensure they would destroy if called upon. I thought at the time there had to be a better way to live. We had the ability to destroy one another. Could we also discover how to love each other?

I have spent the years since then seeking to learn how to live a life that loves others and doesn’t destroy them by neglect, selfishness, and hatred.

I didn’t consider myself a particularly loving person in those days. I grew up with low self-esteem and had spent a good portion of my life self-centered and focused on protecting myself from the hurt inflicted by others.

But then there is God. He knows how to love for he is very loving and giving. Beginning in 1971, he began to teach and strengthen me in how to love others.

In the years since I was in the missile business, I often wondered how the United States, or the Soviet Union didn’t blow the other off the face of the earth. I concluded that it was God’s love and power that kept us from destruction.

Most of my friends in the Air Force were Missile Launch Officers and I saw that they were imperfect and could accidently, even though a remote possibility, set in motion a missile that could have ended the world as we know it.

And what about today? Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. What is going to hold them back from using them to trigger a nuclear war? The answer is for us to act wisely to do what we can to prevent this from happening. The other is to seek God’s mercy and love to hold back Iran and give us all a chance to experience his love before he brings this world to an end.

Those of us who have experienced his love already, have a responsibility to spread God’s love to this world by accepting his love for us daily and giving out this love to others. God says, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” in John 15:13. And that is just what Jesus did when he died on the cross. It was to pay the penalty for all of us for leaving God out of our lives and receiving his loving gift of going to heaven.

What this world needs is to find love in a relationship with the true God who is gracious and kind. Until that happens, many of us will continue to be disillusioned by utopian dreams that leave God’s loving presence out. We will continue to strive for a “heaven on earth” experience that refuses to acknowledge and trust the need for God’s love to make this earth a safe and loving place, instead of a nuclear disaster waiting to happen.