Tag: light of the world

  • One-a-Day Friday 5/2/14

    number 1You are the light of the world.  A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.  Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven  (Matthew 5:14).

    This little light of mine, I’m gonna

    Sorry.

    You know, sometimes I don’t want to let my light shine.  It just seems so little, so dull—I can’t imagine anyone glorifying God because of it.

    I’m sure you never feel that way.  Just humor me.

    I am writing this from atop Zanja Peak, a wannabe mountain a few miles from my home.  It’s 11:00 at night, and I’m in the middle of a night hike.  As I worked my way up here, I remembered something important.  Nature gets dark at night.  Really dark.  So dark that if Mandibles of Death, the fluffy yet vicious golden retriever, weren’t with me, I might be a tad trepidatious.

    I have a head lamp, and yes I do look silly wearing it.  That’s not the point.  The point is, at home the light from the head lamp looks pretty mild.  I sometimes have to double check to make sure it’s on.  Out here, in the ohsovery darkness, it’s a different story.  As I hike along, if I hear something go bump/slither/growl/snarl in the night, I click my trusty headlamp and the world is ablaze with light.  It’s so bright that my night vision is ruined for several minutes, which can be an adventure all its own, but that is also not the point.

    This world is pretty dark, spiritually speaking. That little light of yours may not be much to you.  To a lost soul, it may seem like the very glory of God.

    Which, in a way, it is.

    Shine for him today, Beloved.

    Happy Friday.

  • One-a-Day Tuesday, 12/17/13

    number 1The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.  (Isaiah 9:2).

    The metaphor of light has been around for so long we’ve become numb to it.

    See if you can unnumb (denumb?) yourself a bit.

    Imagine the darkest place, the blackest night you have ever experienced.

    Multiply it by a factor of infinity.

    A blackness so complete it fills you, seeping in through your pores…crushing… suffocating.  It’s every nightmare, every horror coalesced and distilled into a pure, inky nothing that will consume you.

    That has consumed you.

    Then, a light.  It’s small at first, like a candle’s flame.  Even so, the darkness recoils from it; hope rushes in to fill the space.  The light grows and spreads until it fills you—or did it draw you into itself? Hard to tell.  The nightmare, the horror, the emptiness are revealed as fluff and nonsense by the glory of the light.

    Yeah, yeah, I know; the imagery is as old as time.  But…

    It’s true, you know.

    He’s coming.