Mar 14 2019 John 3:16-21

For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.



Dark alleys, cover of darkness, shadow of night. There are a lot of ways we talk about the dark places that harbor dark things and dark thoughts. Everyone’s done that thing, darkness-finding. We do something we don’t love, know we shouldn’t have and we hide it. We hide it from ourselves, from others, from God.



Likewise, we know about lightness. About daylighting. About bringing the shiny nice bits out for everyone to see, especially God. Oh, and our Instagram friends.



Speaking of social media, there’s a lot of trash talking that it only spotlights our nice parts. Personally, I’m ok with that. I don’t believe it’s designed or used to spotlight our whole selves. I wouldn’t look at it and be jealous of the perfect lives others are leading. Rather, I look at to be inspired by the best of others. I don’t need to see about trials, tribulations, stupid quarrels and life’s problems. I tend to unfollow all of those feeds. But I’m all about positive affirmations, great ideas, and inspiration.



Back to light and darkness. We hide the dark bits from others, ourselves and God. This is one reason I really appreciate the Morning Prayer practice of a daily confession of sin. If I spend 45 seconds every day talking about what I’ve done that I wouldn’t want to put on social media, I’ve effectively daylighted my darkness. I bring the shiny and dark bits to God, every day. Not because I do horrible things every day, but every bit of me that I try to suppress or hide from God doesn’t have the opportunity of being illumined, transformed, and renewed.



Some times, there are things that are ugly enough I cannot name them; I want them to remain hidden. And in the darkness, those bits fester and either get inherently worse, or I feel increasingly bad about them. Bringing them to the open, shining a light on them is the only way I know to end that drama.



This reminds me of a matchstick. Before the match is lit, you can see none of it in the dark. It remains completely hidden. In the light, you can see the whole match. And once it’s lit, it is not only visible in the dark, but it also lights up part of the world around it. Today, I pray that I let God’s light in, to lighten my dark bits, and hopefully that light in me can illumine others’ darkness.