This Little Light of Mine…

Sitting in the dark basement with no electricity, I was trying to figure out things. As a journalist, my job was to report history, but people always want NEWS. Never mind what happened last night, what’s gonna happen tomorrow? As I sat in my basement full of stuff, where did my last year go? It started like always with winter: January, February, then March got strange, and we all got stranger. The world got berserk and here we are today. What is our focus? Are we huddled in tight again?  Or do we get just enough news from our “news sources” to make us berserk again? We have to resist “berserk.” I know that’s not a politically correct word. Perhaps frazzled, upset, worried, tired, fatigued, stressed? Which one pertains to us all right now? People are hurting themselves and others all over the world. Armies are fighting, I needn’t go on. I’ve written about finding “Little Victories” every day.

 

Years ago I heard one of the most informative sermons about light I ever heard. I went to a funeral of an old man I was helping when I worked for Project NOW. He was 93 when he rolled his car around the S-curve in Port Byron and died three days later. Four or five people there that Saturday morning had come through a thunderstorm which rolled through just before the service started. The power was off. The pastor came up, opened his Bible, closed it back up and laid it on the rostrum. No light to read notes. So he told us about places in the Bible where light is the topic and gave a good eulogy for the man he knew. So appropriate, so well done. I can’t remember his name, but I remember his heart for the Lord and how he applied it.

 

Light is so important to us, isn’t it? We use it so carelessly, and often don’t appreciate it enough. We are to be the light of the world as Christians, and sometimes we have it under the bushel that the kids sing about. “This Little Light of Mine…” Hide it under a bushel, NO! I’m gonna let it shine…”  But the light has to be in us to shine. So where do we get our light? One place has the way to the light. Study the scriptures. Turn to the Bible and look for things to strengthen your resolve and your focus. Look to your pastor and other teachers to help you. My Tennessee friend posted on Facebook reminding us to quit trying to figure things out and to just trust that God has always had a plan for us and still does. “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” That’s my plan and I’m trying to stick to it.