Daily Word of Grace # 181 (November 24, 2020)
In his famous harrowing debut novel Lord of the Flies (1954) William Golding vividly portrays the darkness of the human heart. British schoolboys survive a plane wreck leaving them on a desert island in the Pacific with no adults. They do their best to establish some sort of societal order among themselves but it all quickly devolves into fear, violence, murder, and destruction. At the end of the novel one of the main protagonists, Ralph, is being pursued to the death by the others and runs into the ocean only to find himself, and the others too, rescued by officers of a Royal Navy cruiser. Golding recounts what happened in that moment: “The tears began to flow and sobs shook him. He gave himself up to them now for the first time on the island; great, shuddering spasms of grief that seemed to wrench his whole body. His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart.” The bad news is our hearts are just as dark as those of the boys in this novel. The good news is that, just like the officers did for those boys, God “has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13)…and God can even create in us new hearts (Psalm 51:10).
Love and Prayers,
Dave