A light in the storm

We all come across times in our lives when we feel as if things are becoming more stressful, more chaotic, and where things continue to fall apart. These "storms" in our life usually comes more often than we would like and more frequently than we would like to admit. It's also during these times that we feel as if God has stopped speaking and started to let us go, when in reality it's the complete opposite.

If God is love and has openly admitted to us that he loves us enough to send his only son to die in our stead, then we can't say that he has let go of us or just stopped speaking, especially when it's really us who have done just that. When we look to God and ask our questions, we think that he hasn't replied, but really he just pointed to his word and said, "I already answered it." God speaks to us all of the time and has even had a book written about just that. He shows us his heart and reveals that he stands in the middle of our struggles, in the middle of our darkness and turns on the light.

Jesus was sent into this world as a light for all amidst the darkness, and for those caught up in the storms of life to lead them to glory. When a lighthouse beams its light across the dark stormy waters, it sends a message of life and hope. Its foundation is neither overcome nor broken from the waves that crash into it, the lighthouse is a fixed object that draws lost boats to it. Jesus Christ is the fixed object, unweathered by the biggest storms and unbroken by the harshest waves and he stands as the brightest light in the storm. This man who delivers us from our darkness and provides life to the lifeless calls us into the same life and charges us to do the same for all around us.

Being a Christ follower means much more than professing his name in Christian settings, but instead it means living his life out loud for all to hear and letting your actions speak louder than those words. It is in the darkest places where the light you bring has the most significance; if my life hadn't had the light invade I would still be walking in darkness. This is where God reveals to us that it's only where light is absent that the darkness prevails. This year I charge anyone reading this blog to do just one thing: become a light in a person's life no matter what cost it is to you, because God wants them just as much as he wanted you.