In the beginning God created light, acknowledged it was good, and then set it apart from darkness.
Consider this as you contemplate circumstances in which you feel set apart. Is it possible that God is intentionally moving you toward the narrow way that is both light and life?
Choosing to walk in the light of the Lord is really the beginning of leaving the world behind and rejecting its false influences, idols, and idle talk.
Perhaps it is the purity of patience or the fruit of faithfulness that refines and grows as we persist in a world where everyone else seems to know the way. The higher roads, the ones that test all our trust, leave us looking foolish to eyes that only see outwardly things. So it is determination and utter belief in God’s everlasting devotion and all-knowing righteousness that keep us going.
Before Jesus, love had not yet entered the world. But in choosing to be God with us, our Prince of Peace and Wonderful Counselor infused humanity with the Holy Spirit, thus softening and nurturing our faith to be vessels. Through the Lord’s Spirit, God gave His light to shine in our hearts, which the world seeks to dim and harden.
Here we also have Jesus’ example of sacrifice, the image of love in action, to better understand tribulations in the shape of eternal purpose. Paul wrote that we are hard-pressed, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, yet not forsaken; and struck down but not destroyed. Our hearts break as a way of tilling the fallow ground and removing the deadened layers that hold back our light from shining.
If we accept that which is painful and tragic in the presence of Christ, then our light will break forth like the dawn and healing shall spring forth speedily, as God declared through the prophet Isaiah.
And from a more graceful state of wholeness, by the mercy of God’s promised newness, we can understand that what broke us also extended our souls to serve those still starving and afflicted by darkness.
Souls are like wax waiting for a seal. By themselves they have no special identity. Their destiny is to be softened and prepared in this life, by God’s will, to receive at their death, the seal of their own degree of likeness to God in Christ.
Thomas Merton
Amidst the cultural churn of chaos and contradictions, often the only thing I can cling to is bone-deep belief in the Living God, whose word is a lamp that lights my path, who came as Light to illuminate all darkness, to give us Truth to see through the foggiest, opaque haze.
“And those who know Your name will put their trust in You,” David wrote in the ninth psalm. “For You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You.”
But what if you don’t know God’s name, or believe that God calls you by name?
What if you have not met Jesus or read that He surrendered everything to empower us with the Holy Spirit, our ever-present help and comfort?
Can you imagine that darkness, that fear, that hopelessness?
The darkness of this world is real, but it’s passing away and doesn’t even exist in the heavenly realms. That is why I marvel at the purpose and courage of the early apostles, who gave their lives to advance the story of salvation. Because they knew — they witnessed the light of Jesus’ eyes, they felt the truth of His words vibrate on the frequency of heaven.
Peter described all their writing and teaching as efforts to ensure that “you will be able to recall these things at all times.” Or, put it another way, to have a lamp in dark times.
And that Light lives in us! It’s the foundation of our precious faith, which emboldens us to hope and calls us to love.
So, be of good courage and imagine: how could your light awaken others who are threatened by darkness?
