Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Monday July 7, 2008

My closing illustration for our Sunday Morning worship service was a thumbnail of Shakespeare's most famous female, Lady MacBeth. Now there was a wife.

Shakespeare fashioned his famous lady loosely on the life of a Scottish queen. In my humble opinion the girl who became queen via means to do Lucrezia Borgia proud embodies the depths to which the depraved human heart will sink to gain its own will. I shall not bore you with the plot or Lady MacBeth's famous cry for relief prior to her supposed suicide, but to a more helpful lament from the depths of her tormented soul.

Prior to her death, after long sleepless nights suffering horrible mental and emotional pain the nice Lady of the Castle states:

"Tis safer to be that which we destroy, than to dwell in doubtful joy."

Her husband became King and she Queen through means of brutality seldom equaled among those of the same ethnic stock. As the years rolled by, her petty self aggrandizing heart made her aware that she was in reality without the "milk of human kindness" the trait with which she had so effectively taunted her once feeling husband.

Were you to walk down the corridors of federal or state prisons today, you would meet hundreds upon hundreds of men or women, who would heartily agree with the statement of the queen. Horrible crimes are committed upon the fortune or persons and in return men and women often pay a bitter price via incarceration. Others spend a lifetime in the chains of tormenting guilt. Many is the mansion filled with a pirates treasure, where the inhabitants lay awake deep into the night, plagued with memories of others who got in their way to the top, of lies, of fraud, and in more cases than you might imagine, cold blooded murder.

The gorgeous young princess became the old hag of the castle due to inner, unresolved conflict, which in earlier times was "sin finding them out." Often the authorities never find out about violations of conscience, yet the still small voice whispers thoughts of trouble, of guilt during night. While those with guilt resolved listen to sweet songs of the spirit in the midnight hour, these followers of the King and Queen toss and turn, go to this doctor and take this pill, all to no avail as guilt for the deed or deeds, for one horrible deed demands another of like evil, usually to keep the first covered up.

The other day I talked with a man who had played numerous dirty tricks on an admitted near dunce in order the steal the man's wife and with it a sizable settlement from an inheritance. He got the woman, and the bucks, but as he said, "Larry, I also got much more with it, more than I ever bargained for!" It is always like that.

In life a sin against your own soul or conscience demands a payment in kind, a pain in the inner person. So, what are you attempting to do about your spot?

Larry Lilly Copyright (C) 2008 Use with credit.

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