3-1-2023

Good Morning All,

      John 8:12; “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”   

    Do you ever find yourself engaged in a little “if I had only known?”  Do you ever watch the stock market or the commodity market or the housing market or the land market and think, if only I had known?  If only you had known, you would have bought stock in Apple computers right away.  You would have bought land 10 years ago.  You would have sold that house before the bubble burst, then bought it back and turned a tidy profit.  If only we had known?

    Sometimes we play this game with a more painful side effect.  Imagine knowing of an impending disaster and being able to avert or reduce the damage or death that would occur.  What if the engineer on that train in Ohio would have known what was going to happen in East Palestine.  We all think that but we don’t get to know.  The events of our lives are shrouded in darkness.  They are hidden from us.  The writer of Ecclesiastes compares it to living in a fog.  We all know about living or driving in a fog.  Our visibility is limited to a few feet around us and beyond that we don’t know.

    So how do we read this verse?  If Jesus is the light of the world, why isn’t everything crystal clear?  Why can’t we see everything that goes on around us and see it with clarity to understand and make sense of it?  Jesus’ light shines on our path, but it is upward toward our final goal which is eternal life in heaven.  That is the light which he shines.  He shows us the way to our salvation.  This light shows us our hope; it doesn’t necessarily show us anything else.

     We go through life in the darkness or in a fog with a light that only shows us what God intends for us to see.  We may tend to think that God should show us everything so we can try to understand it.  We know that God certainly can do this, his power and sovereignty is beyond question.  What we too often overlook is the wonders of God’s grace; maybe it is more loving to us not to know what lies ahead of us.  If, as a parent you knew, before the birth of your child, that your child would die at the age of six, what would we do?  What would the mother of a killer have done had she known the outcome? 

    These may seem easy questions but really point to a deeper truth.  Our lives are lived in a sinful corrupted world in sinful and corrupted bodies.  Through God’s grace, we may be better off not knowing which way to look.  This way we only look toward Jesus and toward our heavenly goal.  We trust God to guide us through the difficulties and the sadness.  We cling to him as our only truth in a world full of lies.  God shines the light at what we need to see and we need to cling to that promise as being sufficient for us.

God of all the light, you shine your light so we can see our heavenly goal.  Teach us to be content with the knowledge of our salvation.  Teach us to love each other with the same love you show us.  Give us your peace, Lord.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret