Saturday, February 05, 2005

Walking in the light?

I was learning a new song to lead the kid's music at church tomorrow morning and, I got to thinking. What does walking in the light exactly mean. This song repeats that phrase about 20 times and with concepts like this I like to try to explain them to the kids. I've known the phrase for quite some time and have some comprehension of it but to be forced to describe it to someone, well, that's a bird of a different color.

So , me being the master of the obvious, I do a google search for it and I find something useful. Amazing.

Here's part of the explanation of walking in the light.
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"What is the main value of light? Negatively, it helps you avoid danger. Positively, it helps you reach what you are after. When you walk in the darkness you may stumble over a log, or step on a rattlesnake or fall off a cliff or hit your head on a low-hanging branch. Darkness is full of threat. It frustrates your ability to attain your goal. But light changes all that. It exposes dangers and frees you from their lurking power. It opens the way to your goal. It is full of hope and promises the glad attainment of your goal.

The first picture of God that John wants to put before us is this picture of God as light. "God is light and in him is no darkness at all." It means that if you draw near to God you do not find a dark and foreboding truth. You find freedom and hope and joy. In God the stumbling logs and rattlesnakes and cliffs and low-hanging branches are all exposed and we are made safe from them. Our goal of ultimate and eternal joy is secured in God because there is no darkness in God. That is, there are no lurking shadows in God. There is no hidden agenda, no small print. He is light, and in him is no darkness at all."
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Here's a great illustration on walking in darkness:
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"The reason this is called walking in darkness is that the only way people can desire things more than God is if they are blind to the light of God. To choose gravel over diamonds you have to be blind. Remember the picture of the man in a dark room. He feels a warm, soft fur with one hand and a cold sharp edge with the other, and draws in close to the warmth and softness of the fur.

But when the light goes on he sees that the warm, soft fur is the under belly of a horrid, man-eating monster; and the hard, cold edge is the sword of the majestic Christ ready to save. The reason he was controlled by his desire for the man-eating monster is that he was in the dark "
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Quite a powerful illustration. I probably would have made the sword a common everyday monster-slayer (TM) sword, but either way, you get the picture.

Now, if I can just boil this down to something I can explain to the kids. Know what. I'll ask them. They'll probably explain it to me.

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