Devotional: Towards the Light

By Shokyuileng Hungyo | TRINICY.org

“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.'”
​- John 8:12

The last thing two section forest officers expected to find at a check post in the state of Kerala in India was a baby -  a one-and-a-half-year-old baby. The baby, with bruises on her face, had crawled her way into the check post in an area frequented by wild animals. She had fallen off a moving jeep at a sharp curve from her sleeping mother’s lap. “She crawled towards the ticket counter probably on seeing the light there,” noted one of the wildlife wardens.

God has put in us an instinct to move towards light.  Hold a candle near a child or place a luminous object somewhere near and the first thing that child will do is to draw towards that light, and possibly even try to touch it.

The first thing we see in the creation account of Genesis is God calling light into existence, “let there be light.” The importance of light is that, with it, life is possible. We see again the guiding hands of light to the path of life in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ.”

At that time when a dispute arose as to who Jesus really was, Jesus spoke up for himself and said, “I am the light of the world,” indicating that He exposes what has been hidden and in him is life - eternal life. And appropriately C.S. Lewis penned, “by it (light) I see everything else.” 

There is a radar within each individual that seeks a beacon to guide us to the truth. St. Augustine, after a long pursuit of inner peace, wrote in his confession, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in You.” We long for that light to shine upon us; we search for that light; we are unsettled, restless, and anxious until we find that light for whom humans are truly designed. 

Like the baby who crawled towards a distant light one evening in Kerala, there is much need for us to draw towards the Light which gives life. But Oh! - this light is different: it not only shines but also searches for that which is in the dark and brings it to light. For a Christian, the uncertainty of life and the gravity of sin has no power over us because Jesus said that “whoever follows me will never walk in darkness.”

The uncertainty of life is eclipsed by the purpose and certainty we find in God and the gravity of sin is done away with the grace displayed in the person of Christ Jesus. “Put your hands into the hand of God” reads Minnie Louise Haskins’ poem "The Gate of the Year”:
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“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’
And he replied: 
‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’” 

Jesus ended his line with an assurance that whoever follows him “will have the light of life.” What, then, do we do? Trust him and follow the path of light! After all, it is the only way to life.

PRAYER

Father, help me see Your light. Strengthen me to reach out for Your hand in every area of my life that is currently shrouded in darkness. Guide me in the path You have set before me and let me live a life that is truly a light to others around me. Amen.
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