For the week of: Monday, June 4th 2007

"Light vs. Darkness"

I have so many “wonderings” about some of what Scripture says about God, don’t you? 

When Adam and Eve were red-faced and frantically trying to find a hiding spot away from God’s view in the garden, Genesis 3:8 says, “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden”.  Wonder what the sound of the Lord God as He was walking would sound like.  Did He tiptoe?  Did the timbers in the trees tremble at the might of His celestial footsteps?  Was it a breeze that caught His Spirit presence or might He have entered on the back of a lion?  Heavens, they were in the garden and in walked God!    

Back a page or two, as the inspired writer tells of the amazing events of creation, he often ends a verse by saying, “God saw that it was good.”  And I wonder, did He stand back with hands on hips, smile and think to Himself, “Now that looks just how I’d imagined it would look.”   What kind of mind thinks of aardvarks, for Pete’s sake?! 

But then come the verses that require no “wondering” because Scripture says it flat out plain.  Look at Genesis 1:4.  “God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.”  You can bet the light was good!  Just a few verses earlier we learn that this globe was formless, empty and dark.  But with the utterance of four words from the lips of I AM, “Let there be light”, light appeared and darkness was separated from the light.

And God has been calling the light out from the darkness ever since. 

At the start of Jesus’ preaching, Matthew quotes the prophet Isaiah saying, “the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.”  

God started out the forming of this world by separating the light from darkness and His Son began His ministry by bringing light to those living in the land of the shadow of death. 

We’re called to do the same, dear ones.  There’s a world in desperate need of knowing there is a God who can separate their personal darkness from light. 

In a small children’s home in Santa Ana, Honduras there is a 10 year old little girl named Pamela who, along with her brother and sister, have recently been brought there to live. They join the thirteen other residents of that home.  Pamela was removed from her home because her family had put her on the street to sell her body to anyone who would pay in order to earn money for the family’s income.  That’s darkness.  That is evil, putrid, satan-induced, malevolent darkness.

Jen, Karen and the other caregivers there will now slowly and tenderly teach this precious child that there is a God who can take her darkness and make it glorious light.

When my feet hit the floor tomorrow morning at 5:45 (yawn!), just like you, I have work to do and much of it is required, not negotiable (why can’t bosses just pay us because we show up?).  And we’ll all march to the beat of the drum that pounds out the rhythm of our individual lives but above all else, above ALL else, my friend, you and I are called to, “declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” 

So look around…with your heart.  Who needs to be called out from darkness and shown the marvelous light of Christ’s saving grace?  Who needs to know that life was not started by the Creator to be lived in darkness?  Do you have some declaring to do?

With love from one called from darkness,

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