This Little Light of Mine

A few years ago, while at the gym some random Monday morning, I felt the sudden sting of a sharp pain in my right eye. It was jarring and easily commanded my full attention. The involuntary reaction I had, like we all have experienced before, was to begin closing and opening my eyes in rapid succession, blinking like crazy, hoping for the irritation to subside. I figured that in a few seconds, whatever debris that had become an irritant would hit the road and everything would return to normal. No big deal, right? But even after removing my contact lens and using eye drops multiple times upon getting back home, the discomfort persisted. And by noon, it was proving difficult to keep my now watery, droopy eye open at all. I had a hunch that this was not a good sign. Later that day, after a visit to urgent care and the local eye surgery center, the verdict was revealed: I had suffered a significant cornea abrasion, the symptoms of which included blurry vision, hypersensitivity to light, and major discomfort in my eye. If you have experienced this sort of thing before, then you know I am not being overly dramatic to say that it felt like a piece of wood was lodged in the center of my eye. Believe me, it helped bring Matthew 7:3-5 alive in ways I never knew possible. The worst part of the whole ordeal, however, was how painful bright lights became, which meant that for next 48 hours I survived in relative darkness at home because even the slightest peek of light from an insignificant hallway nightlight caused me to writhe with pain.

Let’s just say, I have learned the valuable lesson, the hard way, that going to sleep with my contact lenses in is an absolute no-no. It just cannot happen. The risk is too great. My eyesight is bad enough as it is and I need all the help I can get, so taking greater care of my eye health is non-negotiable. Though an unfortunate and preventable incident, I came to develop tremendous gratitude to have insurance that absorbed the associated healthcare costs, and expediated all the referrals that were needed, to see the ophthalmologist and be prescribed antibiotics. I also experienced servant leadership from my husband, as he kindly became my personal chauffeur. Honestly, between us he does basically all of the driving anyways, but on account of my eye issue he went out of his way over several weeks to care for me. In the stillness of our bedroom with the curtains drawn, I had extended time to ponder how my eye’s reaction to it being disturbed, scratched specifically, by a foreign body parallels with how rebellion against God, the default setting of our sinful nature, breeds a stubborn resistance to the light of truth. Light and darkness are at odds with each other. They are enemies not friends, rivals that will never call a truce and bury the hatchet while sharing a refreshing drink together. That’s for the movies. In the end, one will win, and one will lose. Or to put it even more accurately, you can say that one has already won and one has already lost. Eternity has no participation trophies. From John 3:20, we know that, “Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

Christians are people of light.

In John 3:1, Nicodemus enters the scene. He was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish courts, part of the religious and political inner circle that saw themselves as dutifully furthering the ethos of their forefather Abraham—and yet, they resisted Jesus so vehemently as to concoct a successful scheme to kill him. Nicodemus represents how evoking the name of God or even possessing knowledge of God does not automatically equate to someone knowing God with any degree of saving authenticity or intimacy. He visits Jesus at night because he is still unsure about walking into the light. He is not hostile, but quite lukewarm and noncommittal still. Some of us are no different, or we know people who continue to reject the truth even when face-to-face with it.

Contrary to utopic, wishful thinking, women and men are not good. From birth, we are all shaped in iniquity and full of transgression. It is only through accepting the Good News of Jesus that our status changes from that of an “evildoer” to a “a sinner saved by grace through faith.” Knowing no bounds, the Holy Spirit can penetrate the ratchetness in my own spirit as well as the broad toxicity of humankind. People cannot change people, so while I cannot control the actions and reactions of others, I am responsible for displaying the attributes of Christ in my everyday dealings. I am not called to flail away against the darkness like a middle schooler in her first fight nor am I expected to waste precious, borrowed time trying to persuade the unidentified masses to love Jesus or like me. Instead, I am to be someone who walks around humbly sporting an armor of light. Jesus does not need me to defend his honor, but that does not mean I am off the hook for speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), and living that truth in authentic and accurate ways, which is a narrow road less traveled.

Following Jesus requires addressing the residue of one’s own deceptive heart, while simultaneously being hospitable and genuinely charitable to the outsider. It means surrendering to Christ even when it does not serve popular or personal agendas, interests, or preferences. It means living in the tension of inconvenience with dignity, refusing to retreat into all things comfortable, safe, and predictable. It means loving your enemies and cantankerous loved ones alike, up-close and personal rather than ghosting them.