Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Carry Your Lights

Yesterday, I had planned to go to an evening institute class, but there was just one problem: I had forgotten to bring my bicycle lights. On a normal day, I don't need my bike lights. On a normal day, I leave school and arrive at home well before sunset - no lights required. However, on days when I plan to stay out extra late, I need to remember to bring my bike lights with me, so I can be safe when riding after dark. And as the days grow shorter, it's becoming more and more likely that I'll be biking after dark, so it's becoming more and more important that I carry my bike lights.

The world is darkening, and not just because winter is coming to the Northern Hemisphere. The world is darkening spiritually. If we want to continue to travel through it safely, we need to continually carry our spiritual lights. We can't leave our lights at home anymore and still expect everything to be fine. We will encounter spiritual darkness more and more frequently as the world drifts farther and farther away from God, and we need to be ready to fend off that darkness with our own spiritual lights.

Carrying  our spiritual lights with us can be a chore, and it might even annoy or offend some people, but it is necessary for our own sakes and for the sakes of anyone who is willing to follow our examples. God wants us to be "a light on the hill," but we will need to have our lights with us constantly in order to do that. We need our lights in order to get ourselves safely through the darkness, let alone guide others through the darkness back toward the light. Yesterday, I didn't have my lights with me because I forgot I'd need them. In this increasingly darkening world, we can no longer afford to forget to carry our lights.

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