Shared Light

In the beginning, the Word already existed, He was with God, and her was God.   He was in the beginning with God.  He created everything there is.  Nothing exists that he didn't make.  Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone.  The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. John 1:1-5, 14

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Ephesians 5:8-10

Light is the quality God chooses to share with us; it is the name he chooses to share with us.  In Matthew 5:14, Jesus says, "You are the light of the world."   He doesn't say we become the light or that we imitate the light.  Rather, it is something that we are in the Lord.   A life event triggered some feelings of inadequacy, some issues of low self esteem.  Pride.   I chose to hold these feelings and issues before the Lord.  Something I don't always do.  Sometimes I wallow in it a while.  I believe the Lord gave me a picture of a single candle burning in the darkness and reminded me of the truth, 'You are the light of the world.'   He is the light; I am the light.  Holy Wonder.

Now light is often thought of as displacing darkness, revealing blemishes, or pushing back evil.  No doubt it it. But light also gives life, comes from life, nourishes life and is set inside our lives as believers.  The implications for rest are enormous.  Light shines or doesn't shine.  It never strives to shine.  Light simply is or is not.  The light in our life comes from being with the Light, absorbing the light.  I think when our behavior is less than enlightened by the law.  Our failure is not in our trying to be the light, but our failure to absorb the light, a failure of identity with the light.  

The antidote for a soul diseased by shame is always a reminder of identity.  I am the light; you are the light.  Darkness, even our own darkness, can never extinguish it.  Our failures do not disqualify us as children of light.  A candle is a candle.  It doesn't make itself one.  We need to be continually replacing our identity and walking as children of light because that's what we ARE, not what we become.  Somehow through this process of accepting and holding on to this identity, we discover what pleases the Lord.  Wonder of wonders, we become pinpoints of Kingdom-of-God light breaking through into and invading the darkness of the kingdom of this world wherever we are.   We are part of a transformation of cosmic proportions hidden in the dailiness of our ordinary lives.  No matter who we are, we've been given a significance so large as it should crowd out our small feelings.