I Am A Light Of The World

You are the light of the world.

—Matthew 5:14

For the love of all that glitters and shines, lightning bugs can turn an ordinary summer evening into a spectacular show of light.

When I was a young girl growing up in central Illinois, they were the highlight of our summers. It was as if someone sneaked onto our property during the day, stringing Christmas lights high and low. In the pecan and peach trees, through the grass and swing set, along my dad’s deck and my mother’s rose bushes. Then after daytime flipped off her switch to welcome night, previously invisible strands of lights found their source, lighting up the evening with flashing, twinkling life.

Lightning bugs are irresistible to an eight-year-old child. I’d chase them around my yard, watching as their flashing bodies appeared one moment and disappeared the next. But it wasn’t enough to play their game, enjoy their light. I wanted a piece of the action for myself.

That’s when Mom’s mason jars came out. After poking airholes in the lids, my brother, friends, and I set out to catch as many as possible. The goal? To fill a mason jar with enough light by which to sleep by that night. If a host of lightning bugs could turn the evening sky magical, imagine what they could do to a child’s bedroom.

I loved it. My lightning bug jar filled my room with pale green light, my personal lantern. I snuggled deeper under cool sheets and imagined a fairy world filled with flying light.

Still, it wasn’t enough. For a neighborhood group of children wanting to create a magical fairy land, we wanted more than mason jars.

Which is when the innocent childhood game of catching lightning bugs turned a bit more sinister. That’s when we started removing the lights from the backs of the bugs, a futile and foolish effort to sprinkle our bedroom with nature’s nightlight.

Then, at some point, somebody suggested we swallow a few. If a mason jar of light was cool, a little girl filled with lightning bugs was certain to become a human lantern. I wouldn’t have a light; I’d be a light.

Gulp!

But swallowing a lightning bug never made a well-intentioned child shine. And removing the lights from our buggy friends only caused the glow to go out. Even the mason jars filled with living, breathing lightning bugs eventually dimmed.

It didn’t take us long to learn that lightning bugs weren’t meant to light a child’s room.

They were made to light their world.

“You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:14–16 MSG).

Our love of light is obvious. We deck out everything from our homes—inside and out—to our clothes to our cars with accessories that glitter. Move past the material, though, and you’ll still see our near-desperation to be shining people. We grasp for attention, trying to woo the world with our twinkling selves. Whether it’s our social media addiction or our tendency to self-promote or our chronic dysfunction in relationships, we’re trapped in a world we were never created to endure.

But like bugs in a jar, we can’t hope to shine if we’re captive to a lesser way of life. The only way to shine brightly is to take flight, to be fully and freely who we were made to be.

People so filled with the Light of the World that they can’t help but shine.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Jesus is the light that shines brighter than all others. But you can’t watch Him from a distance, pick and choose the pieces you want, or put Him in a jar.

You must swallow Him, all of Him. If you want to shine, Jesus must become as much a part of you as your blue eyes or your brown hair. When you do, when you decide to make Jesus a part of your life in every way, you will shine from the inside out. It’s transforming, this Jesus-swallowing. Both for you and those around you.

And it’s a light that does not dim or fade, no matter how dark the darkness becomes. The blacker the night, the brighter the shine.

Shine, my friends, shine. You have the Light of Life living in you, filling you with a glory you couldn’t capture if you tried. Receive His light. And then, shine bright.

In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.

—BRENNAN MANNING, ABBA’S CHILD