“God provides the electricity but you’ve got to turn on the switch.”

I heard this clever quip recently and it is indeed a great analogy.  However – at least in my experience -sometimes merely turning on a switch doesn’t do the trick. 

Sometimes you need a whole new bulb.

Just a couple weeks ago, five different bulbs in various rooms of my home all burned out over two days.  Now, five is not quite a holy number, but it’s a lot.  And five bulbs burning out within a matter of two days meant I just had to ask:  What is going on here?  What is God trying to tell me and what am I to learn from this? 

Darkness is indeed reminiscent of our descent into fear, anxiety and hopelessness.  And sometimes periods of darkness are needed, required, or even welcomed.

For example, when the literal light went out, I could no longer see the distractions around me.  I felt a peace I hadn’t felt before.  There is something enticing about the dark – the peace, the calm, the stillness.  Because sometimes light filling a space reveals deeper truths that I don’t want to see, as does noise filling my head, busyness filling my days, or clutter filling my home.  Sometimes I long for the peace of darkness, where the overwhelm is paused even for a moment and I can stay stuck in my comfortable cave.

But I can’t stay there.  Without darkness light cannot be comprehended, and once it is comprehended, we can hide from it no longer.  The truths it reveals are not to be feared; they are the beginning of real life; for our wholeness, our purpose, our hope is in light, not in darkness.  I know I can’t get there with the broken bulbs of my old thinking; Lord help me trade them in for clear new bulbs that allow your light to shine boldly and brightly in me. 

     The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.  John 1:5

Shared by Karla Hendrick

Photo Credit:  Jason Leung, Unsplash
Dozens of bare bulbs made of clear glass, each one glowing with the warmth of golden light; they appear on a deep dark black background, clustered together like people standing as a crowd at night.