Remain in the Light.

Have you ever had your eyes wide open but still can’t see?

When I think I have my eyes wide open but still cannot see it usually means that I am in the dark.

As a child I was often afraid of the dark for in the dark is where the boogey-man would certainly find me. Maybe it wasn’t really the darkness but what the darkness allowed to surface in my imagination. Being in the dark can play tricks on our mind.

Now that I am an adult I still fear the darkness. Not because I am scared of the boogey man but because I am scared of myself and what I will allow my imagination to run away with when I enter into the dark. I am afraid of being lost in the dark.

Entering into the darkness is risky for one never knows where one will end-up or what one will bump into.

I was talking to a patient today who told me that prior to his spiritual awakening he stood in the dark with his eyes wide open but could not see six inches in front of himself. Cocaine abuse and prison were the darkness that led him to the light. After his second sentence he was placed in the "hole" in prison where he found himself alone in the dark. He told me it was then in the crook of a bed frame that he found a tiny, tiny little book. It was the Bible. He began reading it and for the first time in his life he stood in the light. He told me he started to cry as the light flooded his heart. He knew that he was loved in spite of the mess he made of his life while living in the dark.

With all the talk about hate, fear and sin, it is not the God that I have experienced. I met the God who brings the light into my world. I encountered the God who searches for me in my darkness when I am most lost. The God who calls out my name from beyond the darkness and by doing so speaks light into my life. Perhaps it isn’t my darkness that removes me from God it is just that it is so dark that I cannot recognize how close God is to me.

My God is not afraid of the dark. God calls us the light of the world.

Why is it that most of us require a blackout before we are willing to take a look at ourselves? It is hard to look at ourselves while standing in the dark, isn’t it? For how can we see while being in the dark? We can’t on our own. God sends the light. And in the midst of our deep darkness we begin to see the Light of Love. It is the light that gives life and warms one’s cold broken heart. It is the light of God. When the light shines into our dark soul we shift from blindness to sight. For God calls the light, good.

Remain in the light.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. Psalm 139

You are my lamp, O LORD; the LORD turns my darkness into light.--2 Samuel