February 2016

Light…

I wonder if I’ll ever see it the same again.

“Light dispels darkness. Darkness cannot remain where there is light.”

I heard Chuck Swindoll speak those words a few months ago on the radio, and they’ve been ringing in my ears and heart ever since.  A simple quote I guess. But one that’s changed the way I see the world around me. And oddly enough, I’ve tried so hard not to write about this. Mainly because I write about my faith in the every day, not to interpret the deep things of God. Not that this is super deep by any means. It’s just different than what I normally put out here. But I can’t escape it. I bump into quotes on Instagram about light and suddenly I’m fist bumping and commenting like I know these people (oh yes, that was me). And then I find myself in conversations with dear friends who just so happen to be studying and reading about guess what — light. I turn on the radio, I hear a sermon, a podcast — and yep. LIGHT.

So, ok GOD. Point taken. This is going to be long. It’s probably going to be all over the place. But stick with me. I’m hoping it will be worth the read by the end.

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LIGHT. It’s all around us, you know. We flip switches and it comes or goes. We wake up in the morning and it’s pouring through our windows and stretching across our yards. It’s part of our every day, and yet I wonder if we really appreciate it…if we’ve really ever given it any thought. It’s like we live in this world, accepting the “knowns”, the “givens”, the natural “laws” of the universe, and even as believers, we forget what or who they point to. The very majesty they mirror. We take them for granted, don’t we? I know I do.

I’ve been learning that light is more than what I’ve known it to be. More than the sun and moon and stars; more than a combination of electrical and magnetic fields. It’s something so specific, so beautiful, so necessary that it was the first thing ever described as good in the Bible. And since it was made by God, I say we start there.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” Gen 1:3

One of the most fascinating facts about the science of universe is that it’s constant. There’s a pattern that nature obeys without exception (paraphrased from Cosmologist Sean Carroll). The sun rises every morning. “Your coffee left on a counter will always become cool. Gravity remains steady, never random. The speed of light remains constant. The earth rotates in 24 hours. (This is so precise, we know the year we need to add a leap-second to our world clock, to keep it current.)” (taken from this article) The world we live in is precise. It’s orderly. It’s never changing. Just like God, it’s creator.

That’s something that grips my heart. I’ve read it in my bible, I’ve sung it in songs. Our God does not change. He made a universe that reflects his glory, his character, his beauty. Just crazy. That’s why I’m so gut punched by light right now. I SEE Him in it. Our world is more than physical my friends. There is a spiritual world here…woven into every fiber of leaf, dirt, sun and sky we pass by every day. It calls to us. Beckons to be seen. But we pass right by it. It’s like since the fall of man, we can only see the physical world, not the spiritual. Our souls refuse it. We stiff-arm God. Nope. That’s just the sun. It makes me hot sometimes. It makes me tan. It’s bright. Where are my sunglasses? DUH.

We miss the spiritual connection. Take this fact for instance. Science tells us there is nothing faster than the speed of light. I’ve read that it measures the same speed (186,000 miles per second) whether coming out of my son’s flashlight or a star galaxies far away. The same super fastness. Great, right? But what if it also applies to the spiritual sense as well? Let me give you two examples. And remember what light does according to good ole’ Chuck Swindoll…

Light dispels darkness. Darkness cannot remain where there is light…

Physical: My son is afraid of the dark. He turns on his light. The light sends the darkness packing. His fears are put at ease.

Spiritual: Are you in the midst of dark circumstances? Does darkness cloud your days? The light of the world is at your fingertips. And all you have to do is reach for the Light. (see verses below).

The unfolding of your words gives light… Psalm 119:130

God is light. In him, there is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5

You are my lamp, O Lord; the Lord turns my darkness into light. 2 Sam 22:29

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. John 8:12

The truth is that any darkness we fear cannot stand against light. It’s a law of nature perhaps, but it’s also the truth of God. Light dispels darkness. And you know what’s even better than that…? Nothing is faster than the speed of light my friends. Not in any sense. Just reach for the Light. The simple and complicated truth is this — the light of God can dispel the darkness that we fear at an unbeatable speed. It’s such a powerful truth. It screams HOPE into my dark day, because the light will always WIN my friends. {Fist bumps, high fives, happy dance…}

So the darkness. What is it? I would say it’s the absence of light. It’s as true in the rooms of your house as it is in your soul. Let’s go back to the beginning one last time… {Adam and Eve}

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” Gen 3:7-10

When Adam and Eve sinned, they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Before that moment, they didn’t know anything of spiritual darkness. Not the kind that whispers shame and fear and not enough. But the moment they disobeyed God and ate that fruit, their hearts were flooded with it. They no longer only knew good, they knew evil. They could see a darkness within. And guess what? Their first inclination was to HIDE. I don’t know about you, but I can relate to that. I hide my sin. My faults. My age spots and accumulating gray hairs. It’s like I’m trying to hide the dying parts of my soul just like Adam and Eve did all those years ago. They hid among the trees. I can’t help but think we’re not much different. Hiding out in the darkness. Sewing our own attempts at fig leaves to cover ourselves and hoping no one sees the truth about us.

This story is crazy right? But this story is about you and me. It’s OUR story. We live on this earth. Among all that was created by God. And we were made to have the light of God fill us. But sin changed all that. It brought darkness and death, veiled our eyes, and left a void this world cannot fill. But oh how we try, right? We take the physical things of this world (beauty, status, money, position, clothes, cars, gadgets) and try to squish them into the spot they were never meant to fill. We’ll be happy and content once we get this or have that or achieve this goal. But it’s never quite puts us over the top, does it? What we need to be FULL is to have hearts that see God again. It’s not a “what” question, but a WHO question.

God has a plan to restore this world and our souls and fill it with his light as he intended in the very beginning in creation. The answer is of course, Jesus. The lamb, the living water, the shepherd, the life, the LIGHT. The way it started, is very similar to the way it will all end.

And this is the part that BLOWS.MY.MIND.

At the end of all things…in Rev 21 when John is shown what is yet to come…he says he saw a new heaven and a new earth…and he saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem…and the loud voice from the throne says…

Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

And when the angel carried him away in the Spirit and showed him the Holy City, Jerusalem…he says THIS:

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. Rev 21:22-23

Did you catch that? There won’t be a SUN. Nope. Not necessary. BECAUSE THE GLORY OF GOD GIVES IT LIGHT AND THE LAMB IS ITS LAMP!!!

{Whoa.}

The sun that shines down on you right now, will one day be gone. Notta. No more. Because Jesus, JESUS…He is the Light and one day His glory and that of the Father be the only light necessary. Holy crap. {oops, sorry…I’m just a little excited about all this…} Jesus meant what he said in John 8:12…

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

One day he will be the LIGHT. Not only our spiritual light, but the only light the world will need. Rev 22:5 goes on to say again…

There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light.

I don’t know about you, but this changes the sun I see today. Completely.

Just like in the Bible, God is telling us his plan to redeem us, to remove the darkness. He mirrors it for us in creation…in the sun we see every day. And it ALL points to Christ. THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

So where does this leave us, today? The word that comes to mind for me is HOPE. And I keep coming back to this verse…

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. John 8:12

John Piper preached on this verse. I just listened to it this morning. He said it’s a life changing verse…and it has something to do with the following and the having. To follow Him means to HAVE him. If you follow him now, you will HAVE him always.

Yes, your sin will be brought into the light…and that is the very thing we’ve been trying to hide from the beginning. But the light doesn’t just expose our sin,

…it illuminates everything in it’s proper beauty…and that changes the way we see life. It changes our perspective, no matter the circumstances. It allows us to see the world in the light of Jesus. His light will help you bear the sorrows of darkness. He can be the lamp on our troubled paths. (all this fabulous-ness is paraphrased from John Piper’s message I Am the Light of the World).

My prayer for you, my prayer for myself even…is to run towards the light. It’s the only place our souls will be truly nourished and fulfilled. And one day, for those of us that follow Him, the light of His radiance and glory will be the very sun that will light our existence… it will fill our world and our soul just as it was intended from the very beginning. A-to the-MEN.

I say let’s go bask in the rays of the sun somewhere and ponder the light of the world …