Lighting Your World
Thanks to the wonders of digital technology, we can access more information than any previous generation. Yet despite this wealth of data, life’s big questions go unanswered: What is the meaning of life? Why am I here? What does it mean to be a man or a woman? Why do we die…and what happens after?
Tragically, this deluge of data and the absence of answers is producing sky-rocketing levels of anxiety, stress, and suicidal despair. But all is not lost. Answers exist; we just need the right light by which to see them.
The importance of the right kind of light was illustrated to me during a team building exercise. During our recent Life in Messiah (LIFE) Board of Directors retreat, we visited a local escape room. We were divided into two five-person teams and competed to see which team would escape their room’s scenario fastest. Team A had to escape from a vampire’s lair (our retreat came on the heels of Halloween), and Team B had to escape from a prison.
The escape room proprietor informed us that clues were all around us, nothing should be overlooked, and some of the items we discovered in one room would be needed to solve puzzles later in the experience. Each scenario consisted of three connected but locked rooms. The goal was to escape all three as quickly as possible within a one-hour time limit.
Working together, our team found clues and solved puzzles that allowed us to move from one room to the next. The puzzles were amazingly creative and diverse, involving number sequences, color codes, visual clues, decoding a directory of names, using a broom to retrieve a key, and more. Eventually in the final room we used clues and items collected in the previous rooms to locate a secret door to freedom! Sadly, our joy was short lived because the other team escaped first and was waiting for us in the lobby.
Our loss notwithstanding, the escape room taught me a valuable lesson. Among the dozens of puzzles we solved, two required using a blacklight flashlight found in the first room. Under its unique UV spectrum of light, the answers we needed were right in front of us!
The experience was a vivid reminder that using the right light is essential for solving life’s most vexing puzzles. The psalmist states this truth beautifully in Psalm 119:130:
The unfolding of Your words gives light;
It gives understanding to the simple.
The unfolding or opening of God’s Word is akin to turning on a UV flashlight. That which was present all along but invisible to us becomes visible under the right light. Likewise, the answers to life’s big questions are there but only show up in the right light. This should not come as a surprise.
Even before sin’s corruption entered the world, God created us to depend on Him to show us what our five senses could not discern. For instance, the reality that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would bring death was present, but it was invisible to our first parents until God opened His mouth to show it to them: “On the day that you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:17).
Tragically Adam and Eve chose the “light” of their five senses (cf. Genesis 3:6) rather than the light of God’s word. In an instant, sin’s corruption began eroding the creation God pronounced “very good.” With that tragic choice, our darkness of soul set in.
The NET Bible translates Psalm 119:130a, “Your instructions are a doorway through which light shines.” God’s word enables us to “see” what it already true but invisible to us. Its unique light illuminates the answers we desperately need to escape the growing despair and anxiety afflicting so many.
Exposure to God’s light begins “understanding,” which is more than mere accumulation of data. The root of the Hebrew word translated “understanding” implies the capacity to distinguish between things, to make accurate assessments. It is what Solomon needed and requested of God in 1 Kings 3:9: “So give Your servant an understanding [literally “hearing”] heart to judge Your people, to discern between good and evil. For who is capable of judging this great people of Yours?” (emphasis added). Likewise, God’s Word gives us the capacity to discern the truth about life’s big questions.
According to Psalm 119:130, it is “the simple,” the naïve, the inexperienced, who benefit from God’s light. When it comes to discerning life’s meaning, each of us has been rendered “simple” by God’s design – our innate dependence upon God to see truth. The key to dispelling the darkness of soul is humbly acknowledging our naïveté and letting the unfolding of God’s Word illuminate our lives.
Our data-deluged and despairing culture desperately needs the light of God’s unfolding words. People need to know the answers to their big questions concerning life’s meaning and purpose will glow under the right light. They need to see the One who promises, “I am the Light of the world; the one who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life” (John 8:12).
This is why I am honored to serve on Life in Messiah’s board. For 137 years, LIFE’s field staff have taken a stand with the Jewish people by faithfully unfolding the light of God’s Word. Join LIFE’s board in supporting the great work God is doing through our staff. Pray for them. Invest in them. Join them in obeying the call of our Master:
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden…Your light must shine before people in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14, 16)
Written by Dan, Life in Messiah Board member
Where have you turned for answers to life’s big questions in the past, and where are you turning for answers today?
Like the UV flashlight in Dan’s escape room experience, God’s Word – personified in Messiah – is the light we need to make sense of reality. If you have received salvation in Messiah (John 1:12), how can you shine your light for God’s glory today?
For a true story of how unfolding God’s Word completely changed the life of a Jewish man, you can watch Dan’s testimony of how he became a follower of Jesus here.