Awhile back, I awoke in the middle of the night, thirsty. I reached over to my nightstand to grab what I thought was a water bottle. When I realized it wasn’t, I set it back down.
The next morning, Tamara entered the kitchen with a broken glass figurine, along with an obvious look of distress.
“Do you know what happened to this?” she asked, the figurine’s arm in one hand and body in the other.
I instantly realized what I had done. We laughed about it, and I bought her a new figurine.
Later, I started thinking how easy it is to make dumb decisions in the dark. When we aren’t seeing clearly, we often unintentionally destroy things.
Proverbs 4:18-19 (NLT) says: “The way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, which shines ever brighter until the full light of day. But the way of the wicked is like total darkness. They have no idea what they are stumbling over.”
Decisions made in sin’s darkness do significant damage. But thank God, He has given us the Light of the world—Jesus! John 1:5 tells us this “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
So how do we allow the light of Christ to overcome the darkness of sin in our lives—whether that sin is our own or others’ whose lives have affected ours? We find an example in John 9, in the story of Jesus healing a blind man.
This man had been blind from birth. Though God didn’t cause his illness, He used it as an opportunity to turn this man’s suffering into his salvation and a testimony for many. If we’ll learn from the blind man’s response to Jesus, we too can watch our suffering lead to salvation and our darkness be expelled by Light.
First, we must surrender to Jesus. In John 9:6-7, Jesus gave specific instructions to the blind man. When he obeyed, he was healed. This leads to the second thing: we must continually stand against doubt. Verses 8-12 tell us that people immediately doubted this once-blind man’s miracle, but the man stood against their disbelief.
Third, we must stay committed to God’s Light. In John 9:13-33, we find the religious leaders trying to convince the man his healing was not a miracle, but he would not deny what Jesus had done for him. Fourth, we must shield ourselves from darkness. Verse 34 says the Pharisees threw the man out of the temple, but instead of seeking their approval, the blind man chose Jesus’ way.
Last, we must respond when God seeks us out. John 9:35-39 says that after the man was thrown out of the temple, Jesus found him and revealed Himself to him. The man believed in Jesus as the Messiah and worshipped Him.
Friends, darkness brings damage, but the Light works miracles! Sure, living God’s way comes with a price, but the prize is more than worth it!
