In the Light

Ephesians 5: 9-14

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)  and find out what pleases the Lord.  Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.  It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.  This is why it is said:“Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

There is a period in my life that I refer to as "walking in the dark".  It came after things were exposed in my marriage and I fell into a state of numbness and depression.  I contemplated suicide on several occasions.  I allowed my emotions to over take me, causing self detriment and the list goes on with many other very "dark" behaviors pouring out of me that I had never felt nor had to deal with.  However, all the while, Christ was ever pursuing, ever loving, and ever wooing me, even when I would try to fight him off or didn't even realize he was doing it.  

This past Sunday, the sermon my priest gave was on the scripture above and it really made me stop and think.  In fact, I specifically heard the Lord ask me, "Why do you call My LIGHT your darkness?" The truth is, I have had it all backwards (I tend to screw that up quite often).  The hardest time in my life (thus far) hasn't been because God abandoned me but because He turned his light on in my life, my marriage, exposing everything so that nothing could be left in the dark, and walked me/us through how to trust him even more than I already did.  My actual darkness was before the Lord exposed all things and it was fruitless.  I had no experience to empathize or sympathize with anyone.  My words were empty, my faith was empty, and my relationship with Christ was extremely shallow.  

I love how in the scripture above it says, "everything that is illuminated becomes a light".  It's strange to think that such nasty, evil, ugliness can actually be turned into something pure and holy as light but that's the awesomeness of our God.  He can bring testimony, purpose, and righteousness out of anything and everything in our lives if we allow ourselves to live under His illumination.  

Living in the light is much tougher than living in the dark ONLY when we do not put our faith in the Lord.  This is why we struggle so much and consider it "a dark time" when all things are exposed.  However, living in the light of our Abba brings freedom and LIFE...Wake up sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.