delighted

The trees whip around outside and the room grows darker; I hear the wind and the walls of rain hit the roof, faint gasps and woahs from my boys in the basement, and the dog stirring lazily from his nap. The light lessens and reminds me of days where the weather was not the cause of the darkness, and much deeper shadows existed in my heart. My soul is grateful that He is the One who not only lifts darkness, but guides us through its impossible and seemingly neverending paths. We serve a God of light.

We love that, I think. He is the Morning Star, brighter than any other. His radiance will one day hit our faces and our mortal eyes will be understatedly overwhelmed. Men of old have gone blind at the sight of His angels. It is no surprise that our God, who created our home to circle around a source of light and warmth, who creates moons to give light even when there is no sun to be seen, who directs us with a pillar of fire, is One who basks in the light. Even His Word is a lamp, a source of direction and clarity. What a good God to give us guidance. To lead us shameful, broken, foolish people. What a God to invest in us.

We also bastardize this beautiful trait of His. We forget what light does. It exposes, it convicts. The greater the light, the more we see things we don't want to see: the faults, the imperfections, the sins. We don't like that word anymore, sin. We say we struggle, we are trying, we make mistakes, but sin is too harsh for us, like when our eyes, so used to darkness, cannot handle a bright light when we first awaken after a long slumber. And so we cheapen the word "grace"-- which, interestingly, loses its significance when we don't consider the sin that doomed us to a future of the opposite of it--and reduce our Savior to no more than a buddy who requires no cost, no cross, no self-death. We do not remember who we were, or worse: we have not changed from that. We have not allowed His light to expose our most shameful parts--a necessary action for true intimacy with Him, and we live with shallow prayers and hearts of happy apathy rather than the deep joy of redemption that follows the embarrassing and humbling realization of our sins.

This shameful, embarrassing act of exposition, of submitting ourselves to careful inspection and a sure diagnosis of severe offense roots deep within our hearts is a high cost, as staying in the darkness is surely safer and free of pain. Some, so afraid of this painful process of sin and exposure and removal, and others daring to think they are smarter than He, minimize what He has clearly called sin, or we remove the word altogether. This is devastatingly rampant today. We say Jesus removed the rules and implemented love, when in fact He tightened the rules: when we as humanity deemed sin as mere action, He furthered into our hearts and words. There is no hiding now. We are all guilty. Of that thought so secret surely no one would know. . .

But what happens after this terrible exposition? What is the result of such a shameful inspection of not only our actions, but every thought and word? Naked confession is rewarded with insurmountable grace. Grace is a word so much sweeter to those most aware of their sins, and it is drenched upon the fully exposed repenting sinner. And consequently, he begins to love the light. Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Word of God, is the outpouring of an author who loves being in the light, who loves his Father's...rules. He loves the rules? He delights in His...precepts. Rejoices in His testimonies. Treasures His statutes. Longs to keep His Father's Word because he loves Him and is forever grateful to Him. He had seen His Father's wisdom and, knowing his own state of foolishness and clouded vision due to sin, finds freedom in following His wisdom rather than relying on his own.


 My heart breaks when I find myself and other Christians reveling in their rebellion, ignoring His rules, keeping one foot in the shadows so to not have to give up their treasures in the darkness, cleverly knowing that being exposed could mean a surrender of belonging, of comfort, of romance, of money, of time, of the thrill of rebellion against God-instated authority. It is a high cost to be rewarded with a Psalm 119 love of His Word. I wonder the world's response if they saw Christians as neither legalistically judgmental rule-abiding gluttons of self-saving and self-comfort in judging one another's sins, nor flippant, emotionally convicted rather than Biblically-convicted gluttons of experience and independence. If they saw us as grateful, nakedly exposed grace-receivers who are delighted to follow Him in every way, to remove any sin that stops intimacy, to confess any offense that violates and spits in the face of our kind God, to live in the delight of His Word, in his ever-exposing Light. In response to His saving work through Jesus Christ.

May we be people who are found in His light.