8: 16-18 Jesus then told another parable: “No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a bowl or hides it under a bed. A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house. For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all. So, pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them.”
How a person responds to God’s word determines whether they will receive more light or lose what they have. My son and I watch a YouTube show: Dhar Mann, a channel that has inspirational videos. A phrase that is present in several of the shows is “what happens in the dark always comes to light.” In these videos, someone is always trying to hide something and, in the end, the truth – what they have been trying to hide, comes out.
I think about this when I read the Parable of the Lamp. When I first heard and embraced God’s word in my heart and learned to walk with him through life’s challenges as opposed to doing it all on my own, I was so excited and wanted to share what I had learned with everyone, but was scared. I had been against Jesus my whole life. I didn’t want to come across as the Christians I first encountered and become someone who judges and looks down on others, who attends church every Sunday, can quote scripture, but turn my back on those in need because I now felt that I was better than them in some way because I had found Jesus. I did not want anyone feeling like they were a project and that I had to meet some kind of quota for turning unbelievers into Christians. I did not know the stories and could not quote scripture, so I reasoned that I did not need to be sharing anything until I had been fully immersed in what is in the Bible, could understand all that I was reading and talk about the different writings as they related to whatever conversation I was having with someone. I was covering my light.
Things began to change when I started praying for others. At the beginning, I had no idea how to pray! I would hear others pray and their prayers sounded so elaborate – and long! They would bring scripture into their prayers at times and just seemed to know what to say. I prayed silently, and my prayers were very short at first. Someone told me that praying was just talking to God, so my prayers started out like: “Hey God. What’s up? It’s me. I am told that praying is like talking to you, so here I am . . . talking . . . to you. How are you today? It’s been an OK day for me. My daughter gave me a hug when I got home, and that was an awesome feeling . . . so thank you! I saw a bag of chips in the closet and tried to eat only a few. I kept going back and probably ate about ½ of the bag. I then craved something sweet and ate two pop tarts. I then felt bad because I’m trying to eat healthier, but now I have some serious cravings for food that is not good for me. I so want to go out and get a chicken sandwich, fries and a milkshake from Chick-Fil-A. God, if you could help me with this, that would be great! I understand if you can’t though, and there is some lesson in it for me. Thank you God!” When I was frustrated with someone, I would pray in my mind, “God, OK. I’m feeling pretty angry now. I can’t believe he/she just said (or did) that! God. Please help me so that I don’t kill him/her! Thanks God! I love you!”
For more than a year, I would just talk to God. At night before I went to bed and in the morning when I woke up I would just tell God that I loved him, and that was my prayer. I then thought it would be a good idea to pray with my 9 yr old son before he went to bed. This would give me some practice at praying out loud in a safe environment, and it would be cool to pray together! It is interesting praying with a 9yr old boy! He loved the idea, which was awesome! We started off our prayer – “Dear God.” Over time, it was a game to see who would say it first as I was putting him to bed. I would follow that up with “it’s been an awesome day,” and go over the highlights of our day. Occasionally, I would add in a person to pray for. I would then ask him if he would like to add anything, and he would say, “Let Mom and Dad and Tucker and all our animals have stinky farts and let Mom smell them.” He would then laugh hysterically. I told him I had an agreement with God that I could not smell stinky farts! He would then add “and be with me and help me sleep by myself tonight.” As with the beginning of the prayer, it was a game to see who could end the prayer first, and he would say “In Jesus’s name, Amen.” The prayer was then over and I could not add anything in. He would try to get in the wording about the farts and add “and forget about Mom’s agreement” and then say “In Jesus’s name, Amen.”
Over time, all the talking to God and the prayers at night with my youngest son began to change me without me really realizing it. The cover I had put over my light began to come off and I felt comfortable talking to others about Jesus and God – and I could even say the name Jesus without feeling weird! It felt natural within a conversation. All the things that I hid inside, that I didn’t want anyone to know about – I started running into people who were struggling with the same things, or had the same experiences – and I started opening up and sharing with them about mine. At first, I was hesitant and scared that they would see me in a negative way and judge me, but I found out that it became somewhat healing for us both. As I started talking about what I was doing and how it was helping and talking about all the crap I experienced in my past, bringing all my fears into the light, and not just talking about them with others, but with God, and then reading a passage or a chapter in the Bible and seeing how it related to either a past experience or something that I was currently going through – I was able to not only heal from the past, but through the whole experience, begin to shine the light within me, that I had worked so hard at the beginning to dim, for others to see.
Shining our inner light is not just reading God’s word and talking to God throughout the day (praying), but applying all that is being read and studied to our lives. It happens, one small step at a time. I was not exactly consistent at doing this every day. There were days that I was too tired, had too much work, or where life just gripped me and I would get off track. I would not beat myself up over it though. I would just pick up the Bible and start again, and start talking to God again. The consistency became not giving up, realizing when I was off balance and starting again. Over time, my heart changed and others began to tell me that they could see the difference it was making in my life. I could not see it, but over time, I could start to feel it – and it felt great!
After the parable, Jesus said, “So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them.” This gripped me when I read it, and after looking back over the last four years since I was baptized. Making that commitment outside the churches steps that Spring Day had a huge impact on my life. The first year, I read just to read and to say that I did it so that I could go on with my life. Something changed within me as I was reading though. I did not quite understand all that I was reading; however, when I read the gospels, something clicked! The more I read and talked with God, the more I learned and understood – which was huge to me, especially after feeling like such an outcast and messed up person! Things did come in very small baby steps – and those steps began to build upon one another!