Daily Butter 10/31: Enlightenment

My little addition to Our Daily Bread (10/31/11):

 

   He came as a witness

    to testify about the light,

    so that all might believe through him.

    He was not the light,

    but he came to testify about the light.

The true light, who gives light to everyone,

    was coming into the world.

  He was in the world,

    and the world was created through Him,

    yet the world did not recognize Him.

(John 1:7-10 HCSB)

 

On this day which some of my brothers in Christ will vehemently preach is a dark day which we as children of light should have absolutely nothing to do with, is a great time to remember the light. We look out into the world at all the evil darkness and wonder why God is punishing us. How a God who is good and loving could allow such darkness? I don’t know, but I have a guess:

 

Just as John was not the light, I am not God and I do not have a mind capable of more than scratching the surface of what His thoughts might be. While my insights have no authority, they have challenged me to seek Him more and if putting them into words and sharing them prompts others to do the same, praise be to the Lord. And that gives away my answer. By faith I believe that all of creation exists for the sole purpose of bringing glory to the Creator. Just as the virtuoso in the rail station that C. P. Hia wrote about in today’s ODB was not recognized in those surroundings, the true brilliance of His glory needs to shine in the darkness to be recognized. Darkness exists to draw our attention to the Light.

 

While most Jews of that time were hoping and praying for the Messiah to come in power bringing the promised peace and freedom, here He comes as a baby in a shed. God sent a crazy man in the wilderness speaking the truth in a way that drew men to him to be baptized should have prepared them to be looking unexpected places. Yet it was in the midst of darkness in an unfamiliar town because of the decree of that government that the Lord came heralded to the third-shift shepherds.

 

All this to say that I might not be the Light, and I may be just another crazy man spouting interesting (or not so interesting) things, but this third-shifter has seen the Light, chooses to let this little light of mine shine, and will not stop pointing out the source of that light within me is Jesus Christ.

 

The light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness can never extinguish it.

(John 1:5  NLT)

 

- Andy Jentes