Season of Preparation: Day Five God’s Light

“I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.” John 12:46

It is sad to me how man has always sought to push back darkness everywhere but in his own soul. From primitive campfires to the invention of the light bulb, we’ve sought to escape the dark in a light we created for ourselves. And yet the darkness just seems to grow.

We are face-to-face with it every day in the news, in the store windows and on billboards, at the table next to us in the gossip-filled conversation at the coffee shop. It’s even in the palm of our hands on the cell phones never more than a few feet from us. The more ways we find to overcome physical darkness, the more vulnerable we are to spiritual darkness.

On the surface it would seem there is no end of the dark.

But we know better.

I ‘ve heard that a single streetlight can be seen for up to twenty miles, but I know a tiny infant who pushed back darkness for an entire world. A beam of hope that beckoned shepherds from the field and wisemen from afar. That brightened the world two thousand years ago and brightens it still.

“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it..” John 1:5

The word comprehend can mean to size or overtake. In other words, the dark can’t out dark the light. I love watching a dancing candle flame and knowing no matter how dark it gets, the dark can’t put out that light.

Light, on the other hand, defeats dark every time.

Where the glory of the Lord shines, there is no darkness. Sometimes we just need to look with our hearts.

This Christmas I am preparing my heart to be overwhelmed by the same awestruck wonder the shepherds felt that night. I am preparing to leave my place of comfort and let the Lord lead me on a journey as the wisemen did. I’m not going to entertain the dark with thoughts of worry or fear. I’m going to get closer to the Light.