Let Me Enlighten You
Imagine that you go out for a walk on a cold night. As you stroll along an empty road, you enjoy the crisp air, even as the temperature continues to drop. All of a sudden, a car crests the top of the hill in front of you. The bright lights blare down on you full force. You are temporarily blinded and exclaim in irritation at why the driver does not at least lower his lights. You are more than a little annoyed at his insensitivity. You look around for any way to escape the piercing illumination. Finally, you sigh in relief as the car passes by and you are free to continue your walk in the darkness of the night.
Now…imagine once again that you go out for a walk on a cold night. As you round a bend in the road, you see the flickering light of a burning fire off to the side of the road a short distance ahead. Your pace quickens a little as you anticipate the possibility of an opportunity to gain a moment of relief from the growing coldness of the night. As you approach, it looks warm and inviting. You are drawn to stand at the fire and enjoy the warmth it provides. Eventually, you pull yourself away and walk back into the night, feeling the cold even more intensely now that you have experienced for a moment the warmth of the fire.
This is the contrasting image that the Lord placed on my heart recently as I studied the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” The Greek word for “light” is the same word used elsewhere to describe Peter warming himself by the fire (“light”). Hence, the analogy above.
How often have I made it my personal mission to “enlighten” the ones around me with the bright light of truth when what they really needed was a warm, inviting fire to draw them out of the dark, cold world? To put it less abstractly, how often have I been satisfied to speak boldly some truth from the Word of God when what I should have done was lend a listening ear, or a sensitive heart, or a helping hand to someone who needed to feel the warmth of the love of Christ through me?
Absolutely let us Christians be the light of the world! But perhaps we should take a moment to ask, “What kind of a light am I?”
6 Comments:
Natalie, this is OT, but I was wondering if you could add a feed to your blog? I'd like to add your blog to bloglines, but can't do it until you have a feed. Plus, I'm sure others would like to add you to their feed as well. :)
What a compelling and convicting post, Natalie--way to expound on vital truth by analogies! I like how your writing style always draws me to your vital message.
Natalie,
that is so true, are we really been a light in the world? This almost reminds me of the Katrina victims, those people do need the warm loving heart of Christ, and we can set an example if we let Christ's light shine through us, so we can do what Christ is showing us he wants us to do.
-Naomi-
Crystal~
I've tried a couple of times to add a feed, but I keep getting an error message that it's not a valid feed. I don't know enough about RSS or Atom to be able to fix it. Have any suggestions?
~Natalie
Did you use Feedburner? I had a little trouble with it, too, since my blog is hosted on my website, not on blogger (which automatically sets up feeds for you). I finally got it to work. You might try a couple more times. You know I'm not too techie, or I might be able to help you. :)
God has really gifted you with a writing talent. Have you considered submitting your work for publication anywhere-- or maybe you've already been published?
Mrs. Hayden~
Thanks for your kind words. You are always such an encouragement to me!
Naomi~
That's great to apply these thoughts to a current situation!
Crystal~
I was wondering if that's what was causing the difficulty for me - that I'm hosting my blog on my website. I have to admit, your suggestion to try a couple more times reminded me of a definition I once heard given for insanity: "trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results." :-) I have been known to employ this methodology on occasion! On my feed reader I tried just entering this url address for the read (http://www.nataliespianostudio.com/atom.xml) and it worked. Do you think that would work for you? I'm not familiar with how bloglines is set up.
Thanks for your sweet comment about my writing. I do enjoy writing, but no, I'm not published. I really don't know enough about publication to have considered it, nor do I know what I would attempt to publish!
Oh, I just thought of something - did you know WORLD magazine is going to be doing a special advertising section in an upcoming issue for those who have self-published books? You should check into that - it seems like a great readership for your book topics. Just a thought... :-)
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