The Cave
By William King
As we topped the mountain in Birmingham, It looked as though something was wrong. The whole city looked yellow. From growing up here, I knew this sky color very well. The steel mills had released sulfur into the air. The sun shining through it made it appear yellow. My fiancé remarked, “I would never live here.”
Birmingham is an old steel town located at the foothills of the Appalachians. It’s called the “Rust Bucket of the South”. A lot of mining and steel-making went on in the forties and fifties. It is extremely hilly. I used to play on the hills with my friends. This was where the old caves and mines used to be.
When I was a boy, I did something really stupid. Actually, I did a lot of stupid things but I'm only going to tell you about this one. One day we came upon a cave that we had not seen before. Boys being boys, we couldn't resist going inside. We had to get on our knees to crawl through the entrance. Once inside, we entered a very large room that curved off to the right.
We took the curve and suddenly it became frighteningly dark. When I say dark, I
mean “pitch tar-roofing” black. We took a couple of steps and I told the other two guys that maybe we should go back for a flashlight. They answered that that was a good idea so fast that they stumbled over their words. No one was afraid! Oh, no, we couldn't admit to that! We backed up until we could once again see the light and get out of there. You know, we never went back to that cave. I dreamed about it a lot at night though!
A few years later I allowed Jesus to come into my heart and as all of us sometimes do, I found myself confessing the same sins over and over again. It was like keeping beach balls under water. By the time I got one under control another would pop up. It was frustrating to say the least. As a young man, I was discipled by older men who helped me to begin overcoming this cycle of repetition.
One day I thought of that dark black cave. On my knees, I asked the Lord to throw my sins into that cave because I was never going back there again! And I have continued asking for Him to do that for each of my sins after all these years.
If you have any sins you need to get rid of, your sky turns yellow, and there happens to be a big cave, I'm sure that God would be happy to forgive your sins just as He does mine and throw them into that dark cave never to be heard from again. You only need confess them and ask for His forgiveness.
Don’t let sin defeat you. You are an overcomer! Remember what God had to say about confessed sins.
Psalm 103:11-13 (New International Version)
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
