A Life Worthy

Tag: light

  • 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.

  • One-a-Day Tuesday, 10/29/13

    Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as number 1wise… (Ephesians 5:15).

    If you follow Christ, the world will not understand you.  More than that, the world cannot understand you.  John 1:5 says, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”  That light is Jesus, and if he lives in you then you are a mystery to the world around you.

    Knowing that, riddle me this: Why do you keep trying to do things the world’s way?  Why do you follow the world’s advice, or try to impress the world?  It’s never going to work, so give it up.

    Paul says that we must be very careful to live in wisdom. That seems to indicate that, if we are not on our guard, we will naturally fall into the unwise patterns of the world.  We must stand fast in the wisdom he has given us, the wisdom that looks like foolishness to the eyes of the world.

    Embrace your inner enigma.

  • One-a-Day Thursday, 10/24/13

    number 1For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light… (Ephesians 5:8)

    Right now our neighborhood is decorating for Halloween.  Witches, ghosts, tombstones, zombie creatures, bloody body parts—they cover the lawns and hang from the windows of houses up and down our street.  If ever there was a time that glorified darkness, this is it.

    As children of God, we are called to be different.  We are light. Notice that the verse doesn’t say that we have light, but that we are light.  Light has nothing to do with darkness.  I’m not saying that it shouldn’t, but that it can’t.  Go into a dark room and flick on the light switch.  What happens to the darkness?

    Gone.

    Just as sin can’t exist in the presence of God, darkness can’t exist in the presence of light.  Don’t kid yourself into thinking you can play the games that the world plays.  If you dabble in darkness, you can’t live as light.

    Does that mean that you can’t be living for Christ and have witches hanging from your windows and zombies bursting forth from your lawn?

    Pretty much.

    Look, I don’t want to step on any toes.  I’ll let God do it.

    Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.  For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?  Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?  (2 Corinthians 6:14)

    Where there is no light, there is darkness.

    Where light is, darkness cannot be.

    Go, Beloved of God, and live as a child of light today.