Light It Up
Smack! With bare feet sprinting on a long stretch of hardwood floor, Logan had nothing but the wall to stop him when he reached the back of the house. Indeed it did. His 4-year-old body came crashing into the wall full-force. Immediately, as Logan began to wail, blood began gushing from his mouth. He’d bit his lip on impact, and not unexpectedly, it was nothing short of a bloody mess.
While I attempted to stop the bleeding and comfort him, I said, “Logan, what happened? Did you just run so fast that you couldn’t stop yourself?”
“No,” he sobbed. “I was running with my eyes shut!”
Good grief, child! Seriously?!?
Oh, wait a second… Yep, I’ve done that. Maybe not literally, like Logan. But spiritually, for sure. Yes, I’ve ran in darkness. Yes, I’ve been tempted to all-out sprint with my eyes shut. We all have, right? And inevitably, we get hurt. We run into things. We smash our faces. We bleed. We cry. We need light.
Enter Jesus.
In John 8:12, Jesus says, “‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”
Jesus’ disciple, John, would say it this way: “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5).
Meaning, Jesus is faithful to light up the darkness we flounder in. Our naivety, our ignorance, our faithlessness, our sin – whatever it may be that is pulling us into dimmer and dimmer spaces – none of it has the power to overcome or change the light that is the life of Jesus. When we look to and follow Him, God turns our darkness into light (Psalm 18:28). It can be no other way when Scripture also declares, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
The other morning, I was driving home from the gym just as the sun was waking up. (If I’m going to get a workout in, it has to be long before anyone else in my house has started their day.) Going north, the sky was more black than blue, and it wasn’t until I turned and headed east, where the sun, though it couldn’t yet be seen in all its glory, was beginning to light up the sky with shades of yellow, orange, and blue. It was not until I faced the sunlit sky that I realized how much brighter it was than the dark skies I had just been looking at moments ago. Somewhere in my mind, I knew the sun was there. I was cognizant that daylight was coming, but I didn’t notice its beauty until I turned to face it.
Like the sun is in the minutes preceding a sunrise, we may not be able to see Jesus’ face just yet. We’ll be unable to behold Him in all His glory until He calls us home, but when we look in the right direction and when we set our gaze on Him, He invariably lights up our skies. Even, perhaps, when we forget that we need Him to, and we fail to look His way. Praise be to Him who does not change – His life was, is, and always will be the light in our lives. And the darkness has not overcome it.
So, to every heart that needs reminded, including mine: Stop running with your eyes closed. Stop driving toward dark skies. Stop heading north and turn east. Go in the direction where light is rising on the horizon, where shades of color are lighting up the sky, and keep your eyes focused on the One who created every hue.
