Light

Today I’m thankful for upbeat people. What a terrific influence they have on us, lifting our spirits, making burdens lighter. I was just at our favorite car repair shop to get a state safety inspection. A pretty mundane chore, but it had to be done. The lady behind the counter by most accounts has a pretty mundane job: listening to car problems all day, handling complaints, explaining the bill, etc. But you would never guess that to look at her. She smiled and made her job seem important. She went out of her way to connect positively with everyone who came in. Her attitude inspired me to do the same when I got back to work. Her cheerfulness and delight in her work somehow changed my attitude too.


This got me thinking that when Jesus tells us to let our light shine so the whole world can see it, we are not just temporarily influencing the world around us, but that light is having a permanent effect. It gives hope, brightens our spirits, energizes us to action. We can’t create this light any more than we can create sunlight, but we can do our best to magnify it, and “put it on a lamp stand, so that all may see."
As we learned using a prism in grade school, light physically appears “white” to us, but it actually encompasses all the colors of the rainbow. Just because we can’t see these colors, they’re no less there. The light that Christ has given us is no less amazing, giving not just illumination, but insight as well. We can see not just where we are, but where we should be headed.
A well-known Fox broadcaster was recently criticized for sharing his belief that Christianity offered more possibility of redemption for Tiger Woods than Buddhism. He was simply sharing the light that he had received, with the hope it could help someone in trouble. He was roundly criticized in the media for his insensitivity to another faith, and told he should have left his beliefs inside the church where he worships. But the light of Christ wasn't meant for a cave, but a lighthouse, and he was only doing what he could to bring hope and redemption to a fellow traveller lost in wild storms of life.