Light Home
The Lights of Home
I can remember driving back to Rolla when I was going to school in Harding. There is a hill that you top on 63 where you can see the lights of Rolla. So many times I thought how sweet it was to see those lights and know that I was just a few minutes from home. There’s nothing quite like the lights of home.
Tom Bodette made us all feel welcome at Motel 6. With his relaxed, down-home voice, he would coax the weary traveler in us, closing each commercial with “We’ll leave the light on for you.”
In a world of darkness, we are attracted to light. It makes us feel safe, it makes us feel welcome, it shows us the way.
God has always known this about us. The Psalmist wrote in Psalms 43:3-4:
Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight.
Here, God’s light shows the way to God’s home. Again, in Psalms 119:105 the Psalmist helps us understand how God’s Word guides us:
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.
God has always wanted to illuminate our path and show us the way home. But, here’s one of the really neat parts of being a Christian. The light of God is now within us. Paul told the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 4:5-6:
For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” a made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
We can and should be the light of God, the lights of home, to those around us. Jesus himself said to us in Matthew 5:14-16:
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 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. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Are you headed toward the lights of home, toward the Father that waits for you there? As a Christian is your light shining to show the way home to those around you?