Light in your soul

Spring is here! This morning I opened most of the windows throughout our house, cleaned all that dirt and dust in the window sills, and let the fresh air and the sunshine in. I’ve truly felt as if I was letting light into my soul with the sunshine pouring in and the spring breeze blowing.

In our daily relationship with God, we need to stay close to Jesus to walk in His light each day. We do that through prayer, worship, and studying His word.  The Bible illuminates the dark areas of our hearts and lives, and opens our eyes with God’s truth and understanding.

David wrote in Psalm 119: 105-106,  111: “Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path, I’ve promised it once, and I’ll promise it again, I will obey your righteous regulations…Your laws are my treasure; they are my heart’s delight.”

But what about when you can’t see the light at all – when things are dark and stormy and unsure and scary? Ann Voskamp writes beautifully of this in her book, One Thousand Gifts. On pages 149-156, she writes how she was driving and had just crossed over a bridge, when she had  another revelation from God: “Thanks is what builds trust in God.” Yet, she writes, who trusts the Bridge Builder (God) when you’ve seen your little sister’s crushed body bleed lifeless on a gravel road? How can you trust God when there’s no light and it’s all black?

“In time, years, dust settles. In memory, ages, God emerges. Then when we look back, we see God’s back.  Wasn’t that too His way with Moses?  “When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back.” (Exodus 33:22-23, NIV).

“Is that it? When it gets dark, it’s only because God has tucked me in a cleft of the rock and covered me, protected, with His Hand? In the pitch, I feel like I’m falling, sense the bridge giving way, God long absent. In the dark, the bridge and my world shakes, cracking dreams. But maybe this is true reality: It is in the dark that God is passing by.

“The bridge and our lives shake not becuase God has abandoned, but the exact opposite: God is passing by. God is in the tremors. Dark is the holiest ground, the glory passing by. In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging His perfect and right will. Though it is black and we can’t see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us,  I-beam supporting in earthquake. Then He will remove His hand. Then we will look back. Then we look back and we see His back.” (p. 156)

When it is black, where you see no light, God is most present there. Today open the window of God’s word in your life, let the fresh wind of His Spirit in, and let His light come into your soul.

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