It was the best of times . . .

Remember that quote from A Tale of Two Cities?

(Actually, I didn’t. I had no clue where it came from; I’ve just always heard ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’)

And I’ve always known that to be true.

Have you ever experienced that?

Something being “the best,” you are clipping along through life, finding meaning, purpose, and fulfillment, and then WHAM! It’s like out of nowhere something happens that could derail everything!

Note the word, “could.” It COULD derail you.

Some call it bad luck. But could there be more to it than that? In the spiritual realm, we tend to refer to it as evil.

In the scriptures, we find an example of it literally being “the best of times!” for Jesus, and then, immediately after his amazing experience (at his baptism) he is “forced” into the wilderness where he is tested/tempted for 40 days/nights.

It is transformational to know that the very things we wrestle with, so did he.

Today we will explore these things in our message, “The Twists and Turns of Temptation.” Throughout the week ahead the meditations will be focused on our tests and temptations and how we confront them so that we can always be people that remain on the pathway that leads to life and peace.

Interestingly enough, the entire quote from A Tale of Two Cities resonates with the example found in Scripture.

“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 incredulity, 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, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” ~ A Tale of Two Cities