ARRRG...My Eyes!!

I am NOT a morning person, yet here it is barely 5 am and I am awake. I am awake because it is finally summer and where it would typically be as dark as the rest of the night at this time of day, not so this time of year. My wife and I keep our room very dark and cool so that we can sleep; however, this morning a faulty shade inexplicably opened itself, exposing this tired, under dressed, unshaven, bed-headed, morning-breathed sluggard to the sun. In other words, what was best left in the dark was exposed to the light of day. When I say that I am not a morning person, I really mean that I am not a morning person. If there is one thing that I don’t handle well, it is someone with too much energy and too much talk first thing in the morning. Just leave me alone and let me adjust please…let’s talk after I shower.  Fortunately, my wife is not a morning person either.

Everybody knows what it is to feel the call of nature in the middle of the night and to blindly stumble into a darkened bathroom and thoughtlessly flip on the light switch.  The eyes reflexively squeeze shut as you curse to yourself while trying to find the light switch again before you are blinded permanently.  If you manage to see yourself in the mirror when this happens, you are reminded once again that some things are better left in the dark, because what you see is surely the stuff that horror movies are made of.

I read in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 that a light is coming. That light is coming in the form of fire. It tells us that all of our work, deeds, thoughts, motives…any action that man is capable of taking…will be tested by fire.  What does that really mean though?  Throughout Scripture, fire is equated with the manifest presence of God. I don’t view this passage as referring to a judgment happening someday in the future at the end of all things. On the contrary, this is much more imminent and certain. Just as certain as the sun will rise again tomorrow, when (not if) the presence of God suddenly shows up in your circumstances then you’ll be known for who and what you are.

It is in that moment where you will have one of two possible reactions.  You can embrace the light of His presence as one who has been hungry for sunshine after a long, long winter, or wish you could reach for a light switch so that you could leave in the dark those things that would have been better left in the dark. One can’t avoid God’s presence any more than one can avoid the light of day.  One can’t prevent the sun from rising any more than one can prevent God from being active within the lives of those He loves.