From Darkness to Light

Daylight Savings Time always throws me for a loop.  I remember long ago when I was an elementary school teacher.  I was one of those teachers who got to school really early and stayed really late.  During the winter, I often drove to school in the dark and drove home in the dark.  When Daylight Savings Time would arrive, I’d find myself driving home in the light.  And, silly as it sounds, I would often miss my turn and get lost.  The same route I had driven every day for months suddenly became confusing in the light.  Eventually, I would learn, of course, but it was only after re-orienting myself that I’d get on track again.

I think about that a lot, especially in this season of sermons about discipleship.  I think about my patterns of living life in darkness – driving the same way out of habit.  I think about the sinful things I do – my tone of voice when speaking to others, my limited grace toward others, my “short fuse” when buttons are pushed – and how easily I do them simply out of habit.  And, then, I am reminded by the Holy Spirit, by reading the Bible and being convicted, or by the words of someone I know and love, and my sin is brought into the light.  It’s disorienting, though, when the things I ought not to do, I do and I need to learn new patterns of speech, forgiveness, and patience – new patterns that bring the One who is Light the glory He deserves.  Yet, I need not do it alone.  I can ride along with someone who has “been there, done that” and learn from them.  But, here’s the thing, too:  I have to be willing.  And, I have to reach out.  And, I have to be vulnerable.  We all do.

I think about how coming in to the light, we need to drive differently; we need to re-orient ourselves.  How good it is for us as Christians to have One to follow and to surround ourselves with others with whom we can “carpool.”

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.  (1 John 1:7)

Therefore encourage one another . . . (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

-Louise-