Reflection Of Hope

On my way home from work the other day, I wept and prayed for a certain student’s soul. 

This student has chosen darkness because, to them, there is no evidence of light. I cried out to God for mercy. For grace. For hope. And He reminded me, “There is always hope. As long as I am in the world, there is light and there is hope. Do the works of the Father as long as you have the light, for night is coming when no one will work.” As I thought about that this morning during my prayer time, I uttered by the Spirit, “The light is still here because I am here. You are in me and I am in You. As long as Your people are here, Your light is still in this world. And there is still hope.”

In my devotional this morning, Amy Carmichael wrote of a few evenings in India when it appeared that the sun set in the east. She said in the mountainous west, the clouds covered the valley and mountains, and there was no light, only darkness. She said, “yet the eastern sky was aglow” because “that sky saw what we could not see. It saw the light of the sun that was shining beyond the clouds that closed our valley in and covered our mountains. It was looking at and reflecting that great glory.” 

As soon as I read that, the Lord communicated to me, “that is what my people are to those who dwell in darkness.” We are a reflection of the light that they cannot see. Because we see what they cannot see. We see the glory of the Lord. We understand things that the flesh and natural mind encased in darkness cannot perceive. We are a spiritual people, seated in heavenly places— a place where there is no darkness and is perpetually aglow with the light of Christ. 

Then the Spirit brought back to my mind the morning when I was washing my youngest daughter’s hair, when the soap was creeping toward her eyes and she was afraid and cried out, “Mommy! I can’t see!” And I calmly responded, “It’s okay baby. I can.”  In that moment, I reflected the Lord to her. She was in darkness and I was in the light…

…because I could see what she could not see. 

(Is 9:1,2) Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those in distress…The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.

(John 8:12) Once again, Jesus spoke to the people and said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”

(John 1:4) In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.

(Matt 5:14,15) You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

(John 9:4,5) As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

(John 12:35) Then Jesus told them, "For a little while longer, the Light will be among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going..”