Walking in Light .................... Parables 103

Trixie, from the cartoon strip Hi and Lois, sits in the light of her friend the sunbeam and says, “Hey, Sunshine, can you turn it down a little? Mom just cleaned in here and you’re making her look bad!”

Every homemaker knows what happens when the sun shines brightly through a window; every little speck of dirt is exposed, no matter how thorough the cleaning.  Full sunshine has the power to make all our cleaning products look like bad purchases. Whatever dusting and scrubbing was done looks like a waste of time. Sometimes we have to decide which we want most: sunshine or our reputation as efficient homemakers!

Some hang up sheer curtains that soften and diffuse the bright light. Most of us just ignore the dust with, “That’s clean enough!” I don’t know of anyone who is so bothered by the effects of sunshine that they board up the windows.  Besides, who wants to walk around in the dark, fumbling and tripping, hurting themselves and unable to see whatever is in the way?

Yet, when it comes to spiritual things, the Bible says that all walk in darkness.  This darkness is not an outer darkness as in “lights out” but an inner one, as in “blindness” and when it comes to finding the way to God, mere human “light” is insufficient. In other words, we need our eyes opened and the lights turned on for us.

Jesus Christ claims to be the light from God that we need. He is able to make us see, able to illumine our life. He said, “Behold, I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life” (John 8:12).

The Bible also says that Jesus shines His light on every person in the world.  So our lives, like the rooms of a house, are at some point invaded by bright “Sonshine.”  This light is far more penetrating than Trixie’s sunbeam. Jesus shines with such power that darkness cannot overcome His light. So, whatever the depth of a person’s blindness, the Son-shine is sufficient to banish their darkness forever.

But why do so few respond to that light? Again, Jesus gives the answer, “ . . . light is come into the world, and mane loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were eve.  For everyone that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, in case his deeds are exposed” (John 3:19,20).

Like bright sunshine, the Light of God exposes . . .  not only the gross and obvious but the smallest hidden rebellion. Nothing escapes and nothing in us looks clean when exposed to the Light of Christ.

But light also purifies. The Light from God cleanses the sinner from his sin, purges his unbelief and purifies his life. Yet first this Light must reveal sin for what it is. There is no other way out of spiritual darkness.

The tragedy of those who stay in their inner darkness, preferring it rather than Christ, is that on the day of judgment when God opens the books, those who are not found in His book of life will be cast into “outer darkness” where the Bible says there will be “wailing and gnashing of teeth.” This is a far worse kind of darkness than the unbelief of this life; it is separation . . .  from the Sonshine . . .  forever!