I lived in an old house for a short time where my only light source for my bedroom was a lamp on the opposite side of my bed... I guess I could have installed a light on my ceiling; it wouldn’t have been that difficult since at one point of my life I worked as an assistant for an electrician… I had the knowledge and insight on how to do it, I just chose not to for some reason. Because the house was not “up to date” with its electrical system, the way my room was wired left me with little options... Sure I could have gotten an extension cord to move the lamp wherever I desired but then I thought that it might just get in the way of things. Many nights would come and go that I would enter my room after a long day of work and as I tried to find the switch to my lamp, over and over again I would stub my toe or trip over something injuring myself in one way or another. No matter how many times I hurt myself I did nothing about my “light situation.” But in that complete darkness, when I turned on my little lamp, it still lit up the entire room exposing everything to its light. When darkness engulfs our surroundings does our inner light shine exposing everything around us? Is this how our spiritual light should be? I'm afraid not; our light should not be seen only in darkness, but it should be just as bright during the day. In fact it should be so bright that the light of day seems dark compared to the Glorious God-given light that our LORD placed within us.
Where I now live my ceiling light is just a simple light fixture with 1 light bulb. I spend many days sitting in my room reading a book or studying. In the corner of my bedroom I have a nice comfortable recliner sofa chair, but as the sun begins to set over the horizon, quite often there is not sufficient light in my room to read or write. When it is not completely dark outside my ceiling light does not produce enough light to where reading can be enjoyable. Often I take an hour break until the sky darkens. The moment the night settles in, my ceiling light becomes superior to darkness and without notice everything becomes visible. I fear that often our inner spiritual light comes and goes as it pleases, becoming visible only when there is truly complete darkness around us. Have you ever had a light that can be dimmed or brightened to your liking? Our light should not be like a dimmer light where it dims down or brightens depending on our reactions of daily circumstances. We should, or may I say, we MUST ALWAYS SHINE with a glorious light that surpasses all darkness. All our moments should be lit to the fullest especially in those times where light is not supposedly needed.
I recently realized that there can be good light and bad light? Bad light is in a sense where the things that you need exposed at a particular moment are still difficult to see and it seems like that light shines only on the place where you don’t need it. Let me explain; last week I installed a telephone jack in my bedroom so that I can move my ADSL internet router closer to my computer because of the lack of wireless signal. What I had to do was run a telephone wire from my dining room to my bedroom, about 20 meters or so. It’s normally quite a simple work project except the fact that the main telephone jack is behind my dining room furniture which gave me barely room to work. If I were to move the furniture I would have had to dismount the entire thing which would have made a 10 minute job turn into a 4 hour job. So I decided to get a flash light and shine it in the area that I needed. The problem was that since I needed both of my hands to work, I had to hang the flashlight up above my hands somehow which gave me very little light. Actually it seemed to shine everywhere but the place I needed most. Even though the flashlight shined its little light, the area that I was working in was still dark which made it difficult to work.
Another example of bad light could be this; I lived in a studio apartment for a little over a year. Now this apartment, because it was a studio, had only one light in the center of the entire apartment trying to spread its little light from the area of my bed to the kitchen and then across to the living room area. The light was sufficient for seeing your way around, but it was not enough to sit and read a book, or the ingredients of your favorite dinner dish. The eye uses 65% of your brain power… the most out of all the other body parts, and for me when I read without adequate light my eyes and brain are forced to go beyond what they are accustomed to do. I soon find my eyes beginning to hurt causing an unwelcomed headache. To me, light that is not bright enough falls into the bad light category, or the darkness group.
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eyes are bad your whole body will be filled with darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?!! Matthew 6:22, 23.
Looking at this scripture brings up many different images to my heart. It also reminds me of different instances I had with a flashlight in hand, trying to shine it towards the vicinity that I thought was needed as I looked for whatever I lost. Imagine if the light within you was just a typical earthly light, like your bedroom ceiling light, or a flashlight. What if your light was equal to the headlights of a car? Let’s go even brighter, what if your light was as bright as the lights of an entire city?!! Would that “man created light” be enough to guide people in the right direction? Would it be enough to withstand this hovering darkness that seems to choke mankind from the truth? I believe heavenly light is the only light powerful enough to produce a supernatural radiance that can lead people to our loving LORD; and if our eyes are true to our LORD, than they will produce an absorbing mystical light that will grasp the attention of people around us. Like a deer in headlights people will be stuck, staring, wondering, and wanting what we have. If your eyes are good your whole body will be filled with light.
The eye can process about 36,000 bits of information per hour and it controls 85% of all the knowledge that you will ever get… our eyes can also act as a firewall to our hearts. They can choose between the good things and bad things surrounding us. In a way our eyes are the anti-virus security system for our hearts. Our eyes can choose to let in the nourishing goodness or the destructive evilness. The eye is the lamp of the body. It decides whether to light the body or darken it. I read an interesting verse not too long ago; while being persecuted by King Saul, David writes in psalm 17:8 saying to the LORD; “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadows of your wings!!” The original Hebrew for this expression can be literally translated as "Little Man of the Eye." This is a reference to the tiny reflection of yourself that you can see in other people's pupils. This Hebrew phrase is surprisingly close to the Latin version, pupilla, which means a little doll. It was applied to the dark central portion of the eye within the iris because of the tiny image of oneself, like a puppet or marionette, which one can see when looking into another person's eye. God referred to his people as the apple in his eye in the book of Zechariah. We are dearly loved by our wonderful God. In fact he asks us to be so close to him that we might see our reflection in His eyes. Or better yet, so that others may see Gods reflection in our eyes. If a person’s eye is the lamp of their body and their eyes are filled with Gods reflection, than within that person is a pure and lovely light; a light that truly attracts other people passionately to Christ.We were placed here on earth to shine with an immensely tremendous glorious awe-inspiring overwhelming breathtaking light that is only given to us from an encounter with God. Remember the time when Moses came off the mountain? He tried to hide his face from the Israelites because he was glowing with the majesty of God! We as Gods children should shine outwardly as much as inwardly… and we should start by letting our eyes light up our heart and soul with the nutritious scrumptious buffet of beautiful scriptures found in the Bible given to us by our heavenly father. You my dear friend where perfectly created for a grand purpose by Majesty Himself; to shine and dance in this life producing a magnificent light so that the world around you may come and be part of the Splendor of His Presence.
