Your light must shine before others

Your light must shine before others.

Everyone loves to see a rainbow etched in the sky right after a rainstorm.   The prism effect of colors splashed across a line of clouds never ceases to amaze us.   Science tells us that it is actually white light from the sun that separates into a spectrum of colors as it passes through water in the atmosphere.

Scripture  speaks of Jesus’ light as one that “must shine before others” in a way that glorifies his heavenly Father.   Imagine the light of Christ as that white light.   When his light touches us, each of us displays a slightly different color, and together we, the Church, become like a beautiful rainbow painted across the sky.

It’s such a beautiful image, but many of us tend to think that we have nothing to offer—no light to shine.   If that’s how you feel, let’s look at a possible remedy.

Nothing can help overturn discouraging thoughts like remembering who you are in Christ.   No matter how you are doing—whether you are feeling healthy or ill, energetic or exhausted, close to God or far from him—Jesus is still in you and with you.   In the same way that a father loves his child, God loves you simply for who you are.   He is committed to you, and he will never leave you.

What does this mean?   That you really are part of his beautiful rainbow—by virtue of his presence in you.   So you can reject any thought that tries to tell you that other people may possess great gifts—but not you.   You can reject any thought that tries to convince you that God’s light won’t shine through you until you are perfect.   Nobody’s perfect!

Spiritual writer Caryll Houselander once put it this way:  “Sometimes it may seem to us that there is no purpose to our lives, that going day after day for years to this office or that school or factory is nothing else but waste and weariness.   But it may be that God has sent us there because but for us Christ would not be there.   If our being there means that Christ is there, that alone makes it worthwhile.”

You are part of God’s beautiful rainbow.   This is the truth.   So go out and let that rainbow shine!

word among us