IN GOD WE TRUST: A Lesson from Light
Last night, I heard a very short snippet of a sermon made in a public forum. I didn’t know the speaker and unfortunately do not recall his name now. But what he said touched me.
Not in the soft, gentle knowing kind of way. No, what he said struck me like a thunderbolt. It resonated so strong and deep that it carried the force of a physical blow that rocked me back in my seat and left me with the sensation of blown out eardrums.
You know the kind of reaction I’m talking about. You’ve no doubt had it, too. When something so profound, so significant bears down on you and says, “Hey you, hear this. Know this. Be certain of this!”
Maybe you got that feeling on being told a loved one had unexpectedly passed away. Or when the person you loved asked you to spend the rest of your life with him/her. Or when you were told you were going to have a baby, or that you couldn’t ever have a baby. Or when you were told that you had a lethal disease for which there was no cure. Or when you read—or wrote—something in a book.
I’ve experienced all those things and this was that kind of moment. That important and significant and carried that kind of weight, only . . . more. And still this morning it reverberates and applies itself to everything else that goes through my mind, to everything upon which I focus.
IN GOD WE TRUST.
We’ve seen the phrase a million times. We’ve noted it being used in all kinds of context on all kinds of subjects. And yet in his simple delivery, those words will never be viewed the same—at least, not by me.
His sermon was a short, simple one based on Genesis 1:3: “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” (NIV)
Then he went on to speak about light and how fast it travels and has traveled without ceasing or slowing or easing, or growing weary or faltering through time and distance for a minute, hour, month, and year.
“Light is because God said, and light obeyed.”
That’s the part that knocked me to my knees.
Now the reverend or pastor or whatever this bearer of truth was, stopped there. My mind and heart and spirit didn’t. I had been profoundly impacted, and am still processing. I have a feeling I will be processing for a long time to come.
Some thoughts on this that I know are significant, but not all the ways this is significant (there is much more to be learned):
Light didn’t question its purpose, its identity.
When God created Light, Light didn’t spark and fizzle or fade in and out. God created it and—boom!—Light was and it shone. It knew what it was and did what it did. Light was, is, and will always be Light. It shone then, since then, and will shine forevermore.
Light didn’t and hasn’t experienced an identity crisis. It doesn’t wonder if it’s on the right path, fulfilling its intended purpose. It is, and it is because God spoke it into creation and deemed it good. Light knows what it is and whose it is, and that it is good.
That’s a powerful, powerful knowledge, and in it is a wealth of wisdom. Light is a mentor to us, if we choose to be mentored. Like Light, God spoke us into creation. He fashioned us with His own hands, infused us with gifts—abilities, insights, skills or the ability to attain them—and breathed life into us, claiming us as His own. He gave us the wisdom of His Word, revealing His character and traits which prove to us that He cannot abide evil or that which isn’t pure, and because we know that, we know that He considers us good. We’re flawed, yes. No surprise to Him; he created us exactly as we are.
He gifted us with free will, knowing that we would goof up and make mistakes and burden ourselves and our souls but also with His promise to be there with us every step of the way and giving us His instruction book—the Bible—revealing how we can make less of a mess with our lives by following His ways. He was for us the ultimate trailblazer, and when we muddied things up anyway, He sacrificed His son to show us the way. By grace, not works, we’re saved and remain His forever.
These days, as in many days gone by, remembering at all times who and whose you are isn’t popular. Some will demonize you. Satan will let loose with all the demons in hell to oppose you, tempt you, do any and everything to pervert and dissuade you. Spiritual warfare is the worse warfare because the ultimate prize is your soul, your eternity.
Think about it. We’re here in this life for such a short time. But eternity is, well, eternity. It lasts a lot longer. So whatever trials we face in life pale to those of battling for our eternity.
Mixed messages and muddled directives from other human beings can manipulate or confuse or deliberately steal our eternities—but only if we neglect to take this lesson from Light. And that lesson is:
We are the children of God. We are and always will be children of God. We might choose to ignore it, to rebel against it, to deny it, but we are who we are. We are whose we are.
The closer we walk with our creator, the better able we are to endure and face constructively life’s challenges and trials. We’ll have them, but we’ll also have the tools to cope with them.
Conversely, if we exercise our free will to walk away from God, we’re closing the proverbial toolbox. He won’t stop us from walking the wrong path, but He’ll walk it with us, patiently waiting for us to return to Him, to call upon Him, so that He can remind us of who we are and that we’re His.
As people, as a society, as a nation, we are in a spiritual war over our purpose for our identity. Over and again, we hear the problems. We know them. We live them and they manifest in our lives every day.
Over and again, we hear they’re complex, and intricate, and too big to handle. But if we look at Light, we know that’s simply not true. We know that anything man does is a flawed bandage and to solve the problem we must go to the root source. That’s where the lesson from Light offers the solution. We need only remember who and whose we are.
Embrace that, and we have the tools we need to resolve our issues no matter how complex or tangled. Reacquainted with our instruction manual, we rediscover that He specializes in making crooked places straight.
We don’t have to struggle with identity or who we are or how to fix what’s broken. Like Light, we just have to be who and whose we are. In that are all the answers to all our questions. To claim them, in God we trust.
There’s so much more, but more must wait for another day and another post. For now, I’m holding on to the lesson in, “Light is because God said, and light obeyed.”
Blessings,
Vicki
P.S. The first book in my new Lost, Inc. series of Love Inspired Suspense novels has been released, SURVIVE THE NIGHT. Wanted to mention it in case that’s a type of book you enjoy. FMI visit vickihinze.com or the Lost, Inc. website.
