The Gifts of God-Light
In this blog series, I’ve made a bunch of suggestions; they went something like this:
* Faithful people welcome the God-light; this light helps us see what work needs doing; our gratitude and love of God fuels our willingness to do the work.
* The God-light illuminates truth and bears witness against delusion and lies. Our responsibility involves developing a set of values that are suitable for the light.
* God-light reveals our Yes. The Yeses our heart sings help us understand in quite specific ways the kinds of work that is ours to do - but it always involves love.
* God-light helps us decide the CENTRAL ISSUE in each situation and this helps us know what to do, think and feel. (Indeed, our actions, thoughts and feelings are not random neuron firings - they are informed by our values, our Yeses, our choices.)
On vacation, I daydream about a life of leisure, preferably on a lake. But it doesn’t pass my Yes test. It is not awesome or cool or cute when the God-light shines on it. Jesus did hang out by a lake at times, but he did lots of other things too. He worked. He taught his disciples in a fishing boat, he turned water into wine at a wedding, he drove out demons, he counseled a woman at a public well, he hosted a huge picnic, he had supper in homes with friends, acquaintances and even enemies. Sometimes Jesus went to temple or synagogue - but all of it was work. In John 5 Jesus says of God, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.”
During the U. S. Open this year, Billie Jean King was quoted as saying, “Pressure is a privilege.” It is a phrase used in her book Pressure is a Privilege: lessons I’ve Learned from Life and the Battle of the Sexes.
Work is a privilege. It brings with it pressure. But here’s the thing. It looks good in God’s light.
My daydreams long for leisure and no pandemics and peace on earth and goodwill to all men, women, children and pets. But this is not what God revealed with his light. He didn’t, as the song goes, “promise(d) you a rose garden.”
God-light reveals reality. Reality reveals disappointments, heartbreaks and despair. But it is worse, I think, if we prefer illusion, for there is no truth or God-light found there. Pressure is a privilege because it implies that we have responsibility. And that’s a good thing. As we continue 2020, how can we use our voices, our Yeses, our central issues, our energy and our work to be part of the solution that helps other people’s dreams come true?
