I\u2019m grateful that my cell phone has a flashlight on it. Night falls quickly these days because of the time change. I\u2019m caught off guard coming out of a building early in the evening when its already pitch dark outside. Like a couple of nights ago when I walked out of Macy\u2019s and couldn\u2019t remember where I parked my car. Oh me, and ugh! Then the inward panic started to build when I couldn\u2019t find my car remote key to click and hear my car beeping and tell me where it was. That\u2019s when I pulled out my trusty cell-phone and its flashlight. (Side note: how did we manage our lives before cell phones? Shish!)
I\u2019ll be heading to Rusk, TX tomorrow for my children\u2019s annual ministry and faith community Christmas celebration. I\u2019ll be where the sky is bright at night deep in the heart of Texas with the brilliance of the stars, but not bright enough at Epiphany Ranch in the country where lights are meager. I\u2019ll be taking my even larger flashlight for \u201cthem thar hills\u201d to navigate to my car.
\u201cLights shine bright everywhere we go; Music for the people to illuminate the soul; Lights shine bright everywhere we go.\u201d Oops! I went off the grid and thought of this Toby Mac song that encourages us to BE the \u201cflashlight\u201d that dispels the darkness in our world.
I have known brilliant light at Christmas when my daughter was born on December 8th. And, as just a teenager, I have known darkness and heartache at Christmas when my Dad went to heaven just eight days before Christmas. But, as I type this blog, I remember the prophet Isaiah\u2019s prophetic words that came true with Jesus’ birth. I believe true for us today. \u201cThe people who walk in darkness will see a great Light. Those who live in a dark land, the Light will shine on them.\u201d (Isaiah 9:2)
So praise the Lord! The LIGHT is shining on us, too! Isaiah spoke of the coming Prince of Peace, and of the light and life He would bring. He spoke of light dispelling darkness. Isn’t that what we desire in our world today? Light is central to our celebration of Christmas. The apostle John introduced his gospel by identifying Jesus as the “True Light, coming into the world, Who enlightens everyone.\u201d (John 1)
Christmas Day is quickly approaching and it comes with the same promises of Light and Life. We Christians celebrate Christmas because the Light did come. Jesus\u2019 birth was not only the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, but as the angels declared to the shepherds, this infant is \u201cthe Savior, Who is Christ the Lord.\u201d To understand Christmas is to know that the ultimate light, peace, hope, joy and comfort the Savior brings is because of His death and resurrection.
Light dispels darkness. That darkness is seen in those who are \u201cin the dark\u201d and lack knowledge of the peace and joy that the LIGHT brought us. We know that untold millions still dwell in deep darkness, having never heard of or ever acknowledged the one true God or of Jesus Christ, His Son. Darkness refers to evil and willful blindness. Nothing could be so dark as those who prefer to live in the dark.
But those of us who have personally encountered the LIGHT are childlike in our faith as we celebrate this season of LIGHT that points to God\u2019s Son in Bethlehem\u2019s humble manger. We rightly point to Christ\u2019s birth as the central event of human history and the dividing line between the age of darkness and the age of light. And I believe that is pivotal in drawing the dividing line between the darkness and the Light of this Christmas, too! That is reason enough to celebrate Christmas, for our response to this gift of LIGHT must be about celebration, thanksgiving, and rejoicing. I\u2019m getting my Christmas party hat on \u2013 how about you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m grateful that my cell phone has a flashlight on it. Night falls quickly these days because of the time change. I\u2019m caught off guard coming out of a building early in the evening when its already pitch dark outside. Like a couple of nights ago when I walked out of Macy\u2019s and couldn\u2019t remember…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15618,19273,19325,12514,22298],"tags":[22295,1210,1095,8905,1769,251,7296,6410,40,19268,16360,6932,1438,18297,22293,22294,19270,22297,1037,17511,22296],"class_list":["post-15280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas","category-darkness","category-darkness-to-light","category-light","category-lights-shine","tag-be-the-flashlight","tag-blog","tag-cell-phone","tag-childlike-faith","tag-christian","tag-christmas","tag-darkness-to-light","tag-flashlight","tag-inspiration","tag-isaiah-92","tag-light-dispels-darkness","tag-light-of-christmas","tag-lights-shine","tag-lights-shine-bright","tag-night-fall","tag-pitch-dark","tag-prophet-isaiah","tag-see-a-great-light","tag-time-change","tag-toby-mac","tag-walk-in-darkness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15283,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15280\/revisions\/15283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}