Ephesians 5:13-14
“But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.”
Most of us know that a common theme within Christianity is bringing the darkness into the light/replacing darkness with light. In this metaphor, the darkness is sin and the light is God’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, and His will for us, which is to be in line with Him. Our goal is often to completely eradicate the darkness by pushing it away where it can never be found and then doing our best to fill the space that’s left with God’s light.
Because we are human & living in a flawed world, this method doesn’t really work all the time. Shoving the darkness away, trying to forget about it altogether, just pushes it deeper into our hearts. Everything that’s in our hearts plays a part in who we are, no matter how deep it is.
Other times we take that darkness to the Lord and expect to never struggle with it again. This causes a lot of frustration and hopelessness when that same darkness keeps rearing its ugly head. Don’t get discouraged when it starts to feel like you’ve been struggling with the same sin forever. Maybe it’s the same struggle, but each time you go through that struggle and go to the Lord with it, you grow and learn so much. You become closer to Him, which is the ultimate goal. Remember, the only human capable of not sinning was Jesus, and we are definitely not him.
When you take darkness to the Lord, you take it out of hiding and make it seen. Like Ephesians 5:13 says, you expose it. This is the part that really got me when I read it a little bit ago: “for anything that becomes visible is light.” Woah! What?? When you make your sin visible, it becomes light. Though we’re only human and cannot be perfect until we go up to heaven, it is super possible for us to walk COMPLETELY in light! None of the darkness in our lives can mar us if we just make it visible! Hallelujah!
So yeah, I just thought that was super duper cool. I’m glad to walk with a God who created me solely to be loved by Him and who wants me to live life basking in His light.
BONUS PICS
In honor of Madison’s 21st birthday on Thursday, we made virgin margaritas. They were so so sour, but so so good.
Roasting marshmallows inside the church we work with! My face was burning to a crisp.
What the road to ministry looks like. We walk this road many times each week.
