“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)
By Pastor Jim Miller
GCU Corporate Chaplain
We do a lot of hiking out in the desert, and every once in awhile we’ll come across a spider web that, when the sun is hitting it just right, is just awesome in how intricate the webbing is and how interconnected every strand seems to be. Fortunately, we don’t see the critter who made it very often!
But it always makes me think about the webbing of relationships we have in our lives, an interconnection of friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, that web out from us. And in one way or another, I have an impact on this web. These are the people over whom I exert some kind of influence. The question is, “What kind of influence will that be?”
At one point in the gospels, Jesus says that He is the light of the world, that He comes as a light in the darkness of a fallen world. And then He turns around here in Matthew 5 and says that not only is He the light of the world, but we too are the light of the world. In the same way that He has come to reveal and heal the effects of the darkness of the fall in our lives, we also are to have that kind of influence in the lives of the people that surround us. Sometimes that feels a little overwhelming: "How can I be light to the entire world?"
But what we need to do is to bring this down to the webbing of our lives, that we don’t necessarily have to be a light to countries or nations or continents. We just need to bring the light of Jesus to the relationships in which Jesus has placed us. To light a candle in our cubicle that will provide some light to the six or eight people surrounding us. To light a lamp that will dispel the fear in our families. And if we all do that, if we all think in terms of how will we be light to those within our webbing today, we’ll suddenly see that an entire room is lit up because we are so interconnected. And that is a lit as it gets!
The next employee Chapel at Building 71 is from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, September 19. Pastor Jim Miller will be the speaker.
