The fight to be light in a very dark world.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Psalm 119:105 ESV
Lighting the lamp.
His Word is a lamp to see our way through a very dark world. More specifically, according to the Hebrew, it is the wick of the lamp — when lit it gives light.
What lights this wick?
Belief.
Faith in the Son.
Who sends the Spirit.
Who lights up the Word with knowledge, counsel, teaching, and understanding.
Without the lighting up of the Word with faith — belief — we remain in the dark regarding its brilliance. That’s what the Pharisees did — the legalists. They made it a rule book, a tool to use to figure out how to live successfully, instead of seeking God’s revelation.
We do not need to figure out what His Word means. In all honesty, we can’t. All we need is a willing heart to trust God to reveal what it means — light it up for us with His Spirit! Trusting Him with His Word leads us to those wondrous Aha! moments. Those times we SEE in a new way, not because we figured it out, but because we asked. waited. listened.
Not everyone gets it. Like the Pharisees, many in the church today try to work it out, add to it, construct ways and methods to stay on the right path. But sadly, they remain in the dark, deceived into believing they have found the way.
The battle.
It can feel hard and lonely to be light in the dark.
Think Isaiah. Jeremiah. Elijah. Prophets whom God lit up with His Spirit to share His Word with people who wouldn’t listen and insisted on calling the darkness light.
I’ve heard others, brothers and sisters in Christ, share their struggles with darkness, tears welling in eyes echoing their words: It’s hard.
Why does darkness feel oppressive to those called to be light?
In reality, the dark is just a negative. It’s nothing. It’s the absence of light.
Light on the other hand, pierces the darkness. Cuts through it as if it’s nothing!
Christine Caine at the 2010 Global Leadership Summit taught me this truth. She shared a story about buying her four-year old daughter a flashlight. Still in the checkout line, her daughter asked: Mommy! Can we please go and find some darkness?
Darkness is nothing to fear when you have light!
No one has ever invented a beam of darkness to cut through light. It can’t happen. Darkness only takes over because something is blocking the light.
The Truth.
The nights on our planet occur because the earth rotates and blocks the light from one side of itself.
Jesus — the Light of the world — has overcome the darkness completely and fully.
As Believers, the One who is in us is greater than the one who constantly tries to block the light with lies.
So, why does it feel lonely and oppressive to be a source of light in a dark environment?
Something is blocking the truth.
Lies have infiltrated your world.
Your faith is misplaced.
When we fail to be light, darkness seems to rule.
In creation, Augustine insisted, there was no evil anywhere; what we now call evil is but the absence of good. Evil, he insisted, is degradation, a lack of goodness, a decline from our God-given created ranks.
— Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water
Darkness. It’s simply the absence of light.
Its oppressive nature is based on lies.
In Christ, you were created to pierce the darkness.
You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:14–16 NRSV
Have you given into the pressure of darkness? said No to God’s call because it seemed difficult?
Have you disregarded His Word because it made you different?
Consider today what lies are blocking the truth.
Ask Him for revelation. Ask Him to light up His Word in your life.
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