Man's struggle

One of my favorite paintings at the St Louis Art Musem (slam.com) is by John Martin, a British painter of the early 19th C.  The painting is titled: Sadak in Search of Oblivion. (1812).
The painting depicts a Persian nobleman clinging to a rock at the bottom of the painting and trying to climb upward on the cliffs.  The rest of the painting, moving upward, is dedicated to the rocky precipices that Sadak must surmount.  Most of the painting is quite dark, however, rays of light shine forth from the upper left of the painting, suggesting that Sadak will reach his goal on this perilous journey of finding the Waters of Oblivion.

Without knowing the background story from Tales of the Genii, the subject of this painting, the first time I saw the painting I was intrigued by it, and spent quite a bit of time that day in front of it, coming back to it again and again.  I wasn't sure what drew me to it, but the conclusion I came to after leaving the museum was that to me, it depicts the struggle of man.  Now that can have all kinds of meaning to it, but it got me to thinking about how we do struggle in this life.  The greatest of our struggles is with our sinfulness.  Now we cannot win this struggle, in fact we lose at it every single day.  But, like in the painting, there is light shining down into our lives.
 For us, it is the light of Christ that shines on us and the light of His Word that leads us to repentance and forgivness for our sins.  There is hope then for us that we too will reach our destination on our journey of faith, not the Waters of Oblivion, but the Water of life in heaven where an eternity with Christ Jesus awaits all who believe in Him as our Savior from sin.
Rev. 21:6 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment... Rev. 22:1-2 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb [2] through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
   
A little different today, but I hope you still enjoyed!
Thanks for reading and God bless you!