Skip to main content

Being the Light

 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. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.  It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. (Ephesians 5:8-13) 

Do you notice the little word missing twice in the first sentence… “in”? While there are Scripture passages that refer to our being in the light or walking in the light, this one doesn’t. We were darkness. Now, we are light in the Lord. We’re supposed to live like it, but while this passage treats it as a fait accompli, it’s one of those things we must continually work on. Often, that’s not an enjoyable task. Our own darkness is comfortable.

          It is as we live as children of light that we find out what pleases the Lord. We make way too big a deal about pleasing the Lord and doing His will. That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t bother, but that we seem to think it’s one of the labors of Hercules, or some similar impossible tasks that only someone born of the gods could have the imagination and strength to accomplish.

          The world teaches us to do this as people, and even more so, it teaches parents to do this to children. John Lennon told the story of being asked by a teacher what he was going to be when he grew up. He said, “Happy,” and for some reason, that displeased the teacher. We’re not supposed to grow up to be happy, light, or good. We’re supposed to grow up to do something important that will make us successful – wealthy and powerful. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. It just tends to lead us into a bad way of thinking: that God’s pleasure in us is based on heroic performance.

          Of course, there is another side of this that could be said to be related to performance. If I have the means to accomplish X, and choose instead to accomplish X/100, or if I can’t be bothered to do what I know to be right to do, then I’m not being the light. The point isn’t to “not perform.” It’s that we needn’t think that we have to set every world record in our performance, when all that’s really needed is easy.

          If nothing else, in our striving to set those world records, we turn the spotlight on ourselves, which plunges everyone else into darkness.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Shepherd!

                 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep . (John 10:14) God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Genesis 3:14) The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths     for his name’s sake. Even though I walk     through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,     for you are with me; your rod and your staff,     they comfort me. (Psalm 23:1-4) For the Jews, it was politically incorrect to make claims about yourself as a teacher (or possibly as anything else.) Teachers were expected to take pride in the...
Post a Comment
Read more