I made revisions to two of my cartoons recently. The first revision was to a cartoon titled Shine the Light. It depicts a pest control man shining a light labeled Truth into a woman’s attic and revealing some nasty rats that are living there. The rats are labeled Sin and Evil Habits. The man warns the woman that if she doesn’t get rid of the rats, they will eventually destroy her home. The Bible verse I put with this was Ephesians 5:11-13: And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. -KJV. In the original version of the cartoon, the pest control man was not labeled, and I think I had in mind that Christians should be reproving the world of sin. But in John 16:8, Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit when He says: And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:. I think I see now that Paul is talking about Christians getting themselves cleaned up, and getting rid of any unfruitful works of darkness, with the help of the Holy Spirit. My revision was simply to add the label Holy Spirit to the pest control man’s hat. This cartoon reminds me of the old song Searchlight by Nancy Honeytree. Some of the lyrics are: Searchlight, shine your beam on me, when I’m not what I seem to be, When darkness creeps in, shine your light on my sin.
The second revision involved my redrawing part of the cartoon. It was the cartoon titled Scarecrow, which depicts a scarecrow in a cornfield trying to scare away two crows. The scarecrow represents Satan, and he is stuffed with straw, which represents Satan’s lies. The cornfield represents the blessing of the Lord, and the two crows represented the church, the children of God. The idea is that Satan is trying to scare the believers out of receiving God’s blessings, but he can only use lies, which are as insubstantial as straw. The crows responded to the scarecrow by telling him that the cornfield belongs to their father, and that they had a right to be there.
The original “Scarecrow” cartoon
I think it was a good idea, but it was only half-baked. I looked at it again recently and suddenly realized that something was amiss, and it was this: crows do not have the right to be in a cornfield, unless we are to think that a crow, their father, planted the field. Being a cartoon with talking crows, I guess that could be possible. But I thought the cartoon would make much more sense if the scarecrow was trying to scare actual human children out of the cornfield, since the farmer who planted the field is much more likely to be human. I really don’t know what I was thinking with the crows, or why it took me so long to recognize my mistake. By replacing the crows with children, I think the cartoon more fully illustrates the idea that the children of God do have a place in their Father’s field of blessing, it is there for them, and they should not allow the devil to talk them out of it. I’m thankful that I publish my cartoons on a website, which allows me to revise any goofs that I’ve made.
The revised “Scarecrow” cartoon
