Light in the Darkness
Have you ever lost power in your house and found yourself in the dark? You hope that your eyes quickly adjust to the darkened environment. As you grope your way through complete darkness, trying to avoid banging your shins on the rocking chair or knocking over a lamp, you look for the nearest window in order to open the curtains, letting in much needed light.
Our eyes are amazingly complex organs that are made to adapt to changes in light. In adapting to the darkness our eyes go through a three-phase process. The pupils dilate very quickly, the cone cells in the retina take about ten minutes to adapt to the dark, while it takes the rod cells in the retina, which are more sensitive to changes in light than the cones, up to forty-five minutes to adapt. Even after our eyes completely adapt to the darkness, we are thankful for the little bit of light coming in through the window.
Sometimes in our walk with Jesus, we also find ourselves in darkness. And just like that room is pitch black, you feel as if you are groping your way through complete darkness. It could be that as you follow God’s plan you feel as if you are jumping off a cliff in the complete darkness, just hoping that there is water down below. Maybe you are in the midst of a difficult season of life, wondering where God is. Quite possibly you have been asking God for direction, only to hear nothing from Him. Or you have allowed your intimacy with God to wane, and you feel distant from Him.
Every follower of Jesus finds themselves in times of darkness at some point or another. What are we to do in those moments of darkness? Isaiah 50:10 gives us the answer – “Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.”
Scripture is full of references to God being the One who turns darkness into light. Below are just two of those verses.
“For it is you who light my lamp; the LORD my God lightens my darkness” (Psalm 18:28).
“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’” (John 8:12).
Those words of Jesus in the verse above offer two proclamations. When Jesus says that he is the light of the world, he is proclaiming that he is God, the source of all light and life. But Jesus also proclaimed that his followers will also have the light of life, by following him and living like him in the world. However, we are simply recipients of that light. Elsewhere, Jesus commands his followers to also be light – “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14).
But our light is not our own light. Just as the moon does not have light of its own, but rather its light comes from reflected sunlight bouncing off its surface, we too should only reflect the light of Jesus to the dark world around us.
So, today, will you trust Jesus to illuminate your darkness, trusting in His light, the light that will guide your path? And will you, do you, reflect that light to those around you?
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