I\u2019ve been praying for light lately.\u00a0 Light that reveals truth.\u00a0 Light that gives direction. Light that chases away darkness.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been praying that we would recognize God’s light, that we would be drawn to it, comforted by it, changed in it and inspired to shine it regardless of the darkness we might find ourselves in.<\/p>\n
I’ve been praying that God would speak four words over our \u00a0lives.\u00a0 Four words that He spoke at the beginning of time \u2026 \u201cLet there be light!\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe this prayer has seemed so relevant because so much around me seems dark lately.\u00a0 The struggles people are facing as well as the world we live in.\u00a0 It just seems dark. \u00a0\u00a0Doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Or is it just me?\u00a0 It could just be me. \u00a0After all, God has been teaching me a basic truth about light over the last few years. \u00a0I\u2019ve learned that we don\u2019t really see the beauty or truth of light without experiencing some darkness.\u00a0 Not that I have enjoyed it but seeing and walking through darkness, even in the smallest way, has only magnified God\u2019s light.<\/p>\n
Chiaroscuro is an Italian term that roughly means “light and dark”. It’s an art term that describes a method of using light and dark paint to\u00a0accentuate the volume, mass, details and contrasts of a subject.\u00a0 At times, the contrast of light and dark can become\u00a0more important than the object being painted and can actually become the subject itself.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what I\u2019ve decided.<\/p>\n
No matter what circumstance or topic, the comparison between God\u2019s light and evils\u2019 darkness is literaly night and day. Experiencing God\u2019s light only heightens the utter void of walking in the dark.\u00a0 And, experiencing the dark side of my own humanity only heightens the miraculous glory of experiencing God\u2019s gracious light.\u00a0 Once my heart sees the magnitude of how both affect the world and the detail of light\u2019s beauty and darkness\u2019s sorrow \u2013 my relationship with God changes. My relationship with others changes. Gratitude wells up from the depths of a soul that is grateful for being \u201cbrought out of darkness into God\u2019s marvelous light.\u201d\u00a0 Worship ceases to be something I do out of habit on Sunday mornings and becomes how I live every moment of my life.\u00a0 Singing songs takes on a new sincerity and passion.\u00a0 Reading Scripture becomes a treasure hunt for truths that will shine more light into my life and, consequently, into my world.<\/p>\n
There have been moments in the past when I sang words that I didn\u2019t understand.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t experienced the freedom, forgiveness, love or closeness to Christ that I was singing about and I wondered if my hollow words were normal.\u00a0 There were times when I read passages and thought to myself, \u201cDoes this kind of relationship with God really happen?” \u00a0Or, “Is what I know all there is?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m convinced that many people in our churches feel similar things.<\/p>\n
For me, the enemy had lulled me into thinking I knew what the light of God was when I really had no clue. It was as if I\u2019d been sitting in a dark wooded area at night with a little match lighting my surroundings and no idea of what the sun would do when it rose over the horizon. The match gave me some light, and it was good, but it was a tiny bit of what was available.<\/p>\n
There’s no limit to God\u2019s light.\u00a0 It\u2019s magnificent.\u00a0 It\u2019s life giving.\u00a0 Darkness can not exist in it. There\u2019s more light than we can experience or comprehend and God offers it freely.<\/p>\n
The question is, do we want it? How badly?\u00a0 Do you, as a child of God, want to know more of His light than you already know?\u00a0 Even if it means you see the darkness more clearly?<\/p>\n
Then ask the Father of Light to reveal more of himself to you. Ask Him to speak those words into your life in a deeper way than you\u2019ve ever known.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet there be light!\u201d<\/p>\n
And keep asking until you feel the sun coming up over the horizon and shining on your face.\u00a0 Until you look back at what you didn\u2019t even know was darkness only to praise His great faithfulness for making you new every morning and for opening your eyes to more of His light.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019ve been praying for light lately.\u00a0 Light that reveals truth.\u00a0 Light that gives direction. Light that chases away darkness.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been praying that we would recognize God’s light, that we would be drawn to it, comforted by it, changed in it and inspired to shine it regardless of the darkness we might find ourselves in. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[125,176,232,249,332,432,488],"class_list":["post-990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","tag-darkness","tag-evil","tag-god","tag-growth","tag-light","tag-prayer","tag-searching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenlawson.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}