Always Growing in the Light

God as Light seems intuitive. God is often portrayed with white spotlights or a general sense of brightness. God’s light can be hard to see in the darkness of this world, but for the most part, I think while humans have an innate sense that God is light and they want to be close to that light. We may not have a name for the light, and still, we want to know what it is, or rather… who it is.

Psalm 139:7 touches on these existential questions:

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence? 

We want to be held close, to find care in something bigger than us. These questions are comforting when we know God through Jesus Christ, but imagine how they must feel to one just learning who God is. Developmentally, we have to learn about God, even if we are built with a sense of God inside of us.

Life will show us light and life will show us dark. It is up to each of us to show one another that God is Light in the middle of the ebb and flow of life.

It’s how we care for one another that makes God’s truth in His Word become a real sense of His faithfulness inside our bones. Whether as a tiny baby or a lifelong elderly believer, we take God’s Word and fit it with our experiences. We don’t pigeonhole God into our experiences, but we hold these two things together to get a clearer understanding of God. His Spirit inhabits these very real bodies. When we take our experiences out of the picture, God seems vague and far away. When we only go with our experiences, God seems unpredictable and far away.  

God’s Word + our experiences = how we process and understand God

God is the Light we are seeking from our youngest days to our final hours.

His Word is clear and true:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)

Sometimes our experiences won’t always reveal God’s light to us in a challenging world. Instead, the writer of Psalm 139 seems to be reminding himself, and also weaving truth into the varied experiences of each day:

If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

If I take the wings of the morning
   and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me. (vv. 8-10)

Wherever I go, You are there. Whatever I do, You are there. Wherever I need led, You are there. Wherever I need held, You are there. The psalmist names both the dark places and times we might experience, and the light places and times we might experience:

Heaven and earth

Life and death

Morning and evening

Land and sea

There will be dark times, which we’ll explore in our next study reading, but no matter what the times or places of our lives, God is in all of them, when we can name who He is and when we can’t. And God sent Jesus, God sent Light Itself into the world, to make it clear for us that Light in our whole lives. There is no place I can go where I am not held, am not led, by Jesus Christ.

May you be held by the Light of the World in every experience from this day forward.

GROWTH QUESTIONS:

What experiences have you had where you can easily see God’s light and grace working?

What experiences have you had where it is more difficult to see God’s light and grace working?

Up Next: Always Growing in the Dark