You are the light that gives light to the world. A city that is built on a hill cannot be hidden. And people don’t hide a light under a bowl. They put it on a lamp stand so the light shines for all the people in the house. In the same way, you should be a light for other people. Live so that they will see the good things you do and will praise your Father in heaven.
John 5:14-16
We are not given the choice of being a light to the world. John tells us in his gospel that we are the light. When we accept Christ and become part of the family of God, we are put on a lamp stand. We are the city on the hill. People will see us. Our light will shine. The only choice we have is the amount of Light we allow through the cracks in these earthen vessels.
So, how do we do it? What does it mean to shine, to illuminate? After 60 years of living, teaching, struggling to be a child of God, I can say only that we shine in spite of ourselves. Our shining is not a product of our own labor. It is not something we can will into being. Rather, it is the byproduct of a life lived in the presence of the true Light. We are a reflection of Him.
The brilliance of that reflection, the penetrating power of Christ’s Spirit in our lives is His gift to us. As we allow our hearts to overflow with His goodness, mercy, and love; with the knowledge of who He is and what He is, that goodness and mercy and awesome reality somehow manifests itself to those around us. The love we receive from Him flows naturally into our world and into the lives of those with whom we come in contact.
As I come to the later stage of life, with white hair, grandchildren, the frailties of age, I look back on what I’ve written and I see the finger of God making a notation here, a reference there. I see where brokenness opened the ‘cracks’ in this very earthen vessel so His light shines in spite of my darkness — shines in spite of my cloudy mirror.
Now, I offer to you those words He would not let me ignore; words that crowded behind walls of hesitancy, words that tumbled through the cracks and became splinters of light. May Christ be honored and a tiny part of His glory revealed in these small splinters.