What The Light Touches

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day. Psalm 139:11–12

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5

REFLECTION:

The verse from Psalm 139 above is one that has brought me a lot of strength over the years. Any time I have myself convinced that things are dark...any time that I am certain things will not go well, I read that single verse to remind me, like yesterday's devotion said, "fear is a trick."

Today, this verse makes me think of a concept in physics having to do with light...

Light travels silently through space until it finds something to touch. Only then do we "see" it.

In the darkness of space, light travels quickly and imperceptibly. It doesn't illuminate the empty space. It bounces off of the objects that come in its path, and that is how it is then seen.

In the Scriptures, we hear that God is Light, and that God is Love. And I think Love functions much the same way. It travels invisibly until it finds something to love.

All of this is in my mind this morning because I think as we look at the emptiness of our lives, focusing on what we DON'T have, what we are afraid of, what is NOT going "right," we see just empty space. We get to the point where we say our own version of, "surely the darkness shall cover me..."

But if we focus on the people in our lives; if we focus on the blessings in our lives; if we consider our own lives, and how blessed we are to have made it to this moment...if we focus on these things, then we are seeing the objects of love and the things that light touches.

Today, let us think on the people who surround us; the blessings that have brought us this far; the life we are blessed to have this morning. This keeps us from staring out into empty space and declaring, "there's no light!" Instead, we see God's Light and Love bouncing off everything and everyone around us. May we be given eyes to see that Light today.

PRAYER:

Thank you for the hope you bestow, the peace you bring, the love you pour out, and the joy you give to us all. We praise you most of all for the gift of your son Jesus. May he be the beacon of light that guides and inspires our lives. Amen.*

*Prayer taken from the Moravian Daily Texts