The Tar Pits of Los Angeles

The beautiful La Brea Tar (Asphalt) Pits

     Los Angeles is amazing. It can be a great place to live or a place where the great ones come to die. I visited the La Brea Tar Pits with students from Centers of Learning last week. Looking at those giant animals, I realized Los Angeles has always been a place where animals and people came seeking that which they thought would sustain their life, but many ended up trapped in seemingly hopeless situations. The wolves, the saber tooth cat, and the vultures gathered to feed off their dying carcasses. Talk about futility.
       The city of the angeles is one of the largest cities in the world and right in the middle of its down town section is a large ancient tar pit (actually it is asphalt). It is an asphalt pit thousands of years old and full of dead bones. Bones of animals that died trying to get out of that sticky pit. They came seeking something they thought would be nourishing and ended up dying for it. Many thought the water on top of the tar would be refreshing in an environment where water was scarce. Little did they realize the danger that lay just below the surface of that water. It looked so inviting they would often wade in to refresh themselves. To their horror they would become stuck in the La Brea (Sp. the tar). Often the animal died of starvation or lay there long enough to be eaten by wolves, sabertooth cats, or vultures because they could not free themselves from the sucking, sticky, substance of black death, a frustratingly slow way to die. Eventually they would sink.  A death that was without hope.

Singing at the "Pits"

       But do not worry, Los Angeles can make money off of anything. What is left is a museum that has bigger than life skeletons of a by gone time. Visitors from all over come and gawk at these monsters and wonder at their remains. They become the "legends of LA", along the walk of infamy.
     I am sure you get the picture. This spirit of feeling trapped and hopeless still hangs like the smog over the city of Angels and affects many who start off hoping great things for their lives. "Don't quit your day job" is more than just a cute remark around here. It really  is not funny. Like an oppression it can sit on your spirit. It might even be an elemental spirit (Col.2:20, 2:8).
     Our Christian lives can have a cloud of hopelessness about them too, as we look forward to the great promises of God on which our lives are nourished. This nourishment can be a trap, just like the asphalt pits. We can put our hope in something that is not what our Father might have for us and just like the woolly mammoth we get stuck in the sticky, sucking substance of man's ideas, dreams and deception. It become the "substance of what dreams are made of". Paul Bunyan called it the "slough of despond". The futility of our lives can begin to bog us down. "Bog us down", I like that.  But it is no laughing matter. It can be deadly serious. When we lose hope then we have succumbed to the father of lies, the devil.  That is right, lies from the liar. Romans 8 tells us that God subjected "creation to futility...in hope that the creation itself will be set free"(NASB). If we are feeling the sense of futility without hope then it is not from God!  Because our Father's futility is NOT without hope (From Hopelessness Into Hope).  Futility without hope is from the liar who can only mimic our Father but can never rise to the fullness of His love, not even close.

       If we belong to Christ then He is revealing the true Father to us. Our hope is anchored, Gk. agkoran, in Him, within the veil. The Bible says our hope is steadfast, made firm (Heb. 6:19). The Greek word for "steadfast, firm" is asphaltos!!! That is right, asphalt. The name of the substance that kills the animals and holds them tight is the same word used for the steadfast substance of what holds us within the veil! Satan can only mimic or use the principals of God against us. He is not a creator, except of lies. He has taken God's principle of "steadfast hope" and made it steadfast hopelessness. Yuck!
       Thanks to Christ we have our hope anchored steadfast within the veil. When I am feeling the strain of futility and uselessness of life, I am going to reject that lie for the true hope from our Father given to me through Christ. I don't have to be stuck. I am set free from the sin that easily besets me. I can lay off the weights (Heb.12:1) because our Father subjected all creation in hope that creation it self will be set free. I pray for myself, my family, my community and Los Angeles that we all will have our hope set like asphalt in our loving Father. This is faith, the real substance of our dreams which is what we hope for (Heb.11:1).
       And then there are Edward Mote's words, "In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil, On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand."