Light • Devotion 4

Night Light
Angela Sanchez

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16

As a child, I had many fears, but probably my biggest fear was of the dark. I hated the dark as much as someone might hate walking into a haunted house or climbing onto a large roller coaster. I do not know what started the fear or how it grew to be such a big one; but I believe it stems back to the fear that almost every human has, the fear of the unknown.

When a room is dark, you cannot see what is in front of you. If you try to walk, you may trip on something you cannot see, bump into a dresser, or worse yet, bump into an intruder or a monster who came in unbeknownst to you. Do you see how quickly our imaginations can run out ahead of us?

As an adult, I obviously do not believe in monsters anymore, but I do believe there is a spiritual realm that we cannot see with the naked eye. All around us, there is a war going on between God and the devil, God’s angels and Satan’s demons. We cannot see them, thus we call this darkness. Our enemy wants us to live in spiritual darkness because if we are walking in darkness, we cannot see or recognize his attacks. Those who have not come to know Christ as their Savior through the light of the Word, are stumbling through life like that frightened child in a dark room who is tripping over things they cannot see and mostly just guessing which way to go.

My fear of the dark was handled quite easily by something that I cherished and took everywhere I went for sleepovers. It was an amazing little invention called a night light. Maybe you slept with one as a child and you outgrew the need for it, maybe you put one in your own child’s bedroom to calm their fears, or maybe you have one in your bathroom so you can see your way in the middle of the night. If you have ever used one, you know how quickly it makes a difference. A room can go from pitch black to just enough light to see the elements in a room, enough to see that there are no monsters or intruders who have entered the room.

In all seriousness though, that night light can be the difference between making it safely to the bathroom without injury or tripping over something and having a nasty fall. The thing about light is that it does not take much to help you see. Even just a tiny lightbulb plugged into a wall can make it light enough to see where you are walking; however, when you are plugging in that night light, you likely are not going to plug it in behind a dresser or any other piece of furniture. No, you are likely to plug it into a wall with no obstructions so that it can cast the most light possible.

That is, in a nutshell, what this verse is saying. It is saying that you as a believer, are that night light, if you hide behind a piece of furniture, what good are you doing to light the path for someone? You must find your place in life, the place where God wants to use you and shine there.

Another great thing about light is that the more lights you turn on, the brighter the room gets, the more clearly you can see everything. That is why I believe the church is so powerful. When we work together, we shine like a strand of Christmas lights (picture the ones in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation). That house lit up the entire neighborhood causing a power surge. Imagine the power surge that the church sends into the realms of darkness when we come together and shine the light of God’s Word out into a dark world.