Darkness Dispelled

This post is a part of the Five Minute Friday link up. We write for just 5 minutes from a one-word prompt, without heavy editing, and see what happens. Today’s prompt is “darkness.” 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:1-5 ESV).

It’s Christmas time, obviously. I love it, and I don’t love it so much in some aspects. I hate the commercialism. I love the lights and the pretty decorations. I hate that sacred songs are used to try to sell stuff. Although I do know that many “sacred” songs were taken from old bar songs and other not-so-sacred arenas.

I also know that we have taken other celebrations from the secular, and even pagan, into our stable of Christian holidays. And I’m really OK with that, for the most part, because I know that when God came into my life, He changed me. He brought His light and it dispelled the darkness.

So taking something that was once used for pagan rituals and making it new follows the gospel narrative, does it not? So when what once was a bar song becomes remade into a hymn of praise to God, I think God smiles.

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Transformation, that’s what it’s all about.

So Jesus, coming into the world and bringing the light of life to a dark and musty home for animals, transforms everything He touches. The dirty become clean, the broken become beautiful, the dark become infused with light.

That’s the gospel. That’s the message of Christmas. That’s what the beautiful lights represents.

Darkness is dispelled.

It’s Too Hard!

My younger two kids attend a private school (Trace Academy) that is unique in its operation: the entire school is run by parents. Every family is required to volunteer at least one and a half days on campus. If you do more than that, if the school’s budget can handle it, you get a break in your tuition.

I teach 2nd grade. I have 10 little yard apes: 8 boys and 2 girls. I never before saw myself as a teacher. One of the reasons we chose this school is that I knew I wasn’t cut out to homeschool. For my first 8 years at the school, I worked in the office and then as part of the team that helped manage the school. I am an administrator.

And then, through unforeseen circumstances, God put me in this position. He made it very obvious, or I definitely wouldn’t be here.

Due to the circumstances, if I I hadn’t been walking in the Spirit, bitterness would have been my response. I would not have been able to see what He wanted me to do. I would have said, like I hear so many times in my classroom, “I don’t get it! It’s too hard! I don’t understand!” But because I saw the situation through God’s eyes, I responded in the Spirit and so find myself leading this precious though precocious group of kids with joy. And some have even said I’m good at it. Imagine that.

First Corinthians 2:14-16 in the Message says, “The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can’t receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. There’s no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit—God’s Spirit and our spirits in open communion. Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God’s Spirit is doing, and can’t be judged by unspiritual critics. Isaiah’s question, “Is there anyone around who knows God’s Spirit, anyone who knows what He is doing?” has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ’s Spirit.”

Serve those who have wronged me? Ridiculous! (“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head” Romans 12:20.)

Don’t hit my brother back? But he HIT me! (“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” Romans 12:19).

We see a child who would otherwise, or so we think, have no home, being adopted and loved by a gay couple. How can we say that is wrong?

We see medical “advances” being made using fetal tissue. How can we deny someone a cure for their disease by not allowing experimentation with fetal tissue? How intolerant and rigid.

“The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can’t receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. There’s no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness.”

I don’t get it! It’s too hard!

“Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God’s Spirit is doing,”

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).

Thankful today for:

28. a mild winter

28. my Vista Church family

29. a group of moms with whom I can pray