The light shines in the darkness...

And the darkness does not comprehend it.

There is something about light. It reveals things...nooks and crannys...dirt and grime....smoothe and rough surfaces....shades and shadows....beauty and ugliness.

Light allows us to see if we're on the right path or if we're about to fall off a cliff.

It comes into the dark places and makes them livable.

The Spirit of God is light.

It comes to show us the way. It comes to reveal the dark corners of our souls. It goes in deeply showing us things we didn't know were there....hiding, sometimes festering and growing until our very lives depend on it being cleansed.

Sometimes we walk away from the process. We turn our backs and run from looking too deeply.....when all God wants to do is make our lives better. He only wants to heal and make our beings whole.

We become, as Pastor Seth talked about this morning...like Jonah, a prophet in the Old Testament....the one who was swallowed by a huge fish. Well, you can take the story literally or figuratively but the fact remained that Jonah tried to run away from God and all that God wanted him to do. God wanted Jonah to go to the land of his enemies, to tell them destruction of their land was on the horizon. I must admit, that would be a task, going to talk to people who wanted nothing more than to skin you alive!! But he ran in the opposite direction. Prophets normally did what God asked of them. Not Jonah. Not at first anyway. He ran...far and fast.

I think I do that too, at times. I hear God. I know he's trying to get my attention. I give all kinds of excuses as to why I'm NOT doing what he asks and in the end, the darkness wins out and I'm not what I could be. I lose.

Today, that Light shone. Help us to not run away God....take away our fear, cleanse us and make us new people.