Light of the world

By Engr. Carlos V. Cornejo

Christ said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) God is the projector; we are the movie.  Our lives will unfold beautifully on the screen if we let his projector light lit up our lives.

We should let ourselves be found by God and stand in the light.  When we don’t let God’s light shine on us, we remain in our shadow and not become the full identity of ourselves.  Only when we run towards the light, in love with the light and not with ourselves, do we then become ourselves.  Our true identity in this life can only be found in God in the same way as the identity of a character in a novel is found only from the writer of that novel.  It is the answer to the question “What is the purpose of my life here on earth?”  We can’t find the answer to that question from ourselves because we did not create ourselves.  God will provide that answer for us once we get close to Him.  God will not give us that answer in just one sitting or in a single prayer.  We need to develop first that relationship with God, because our identity or calling in life is actually a fruit of that relationship, in the same way a child is a product of the love between a man and a woman after a long relationship that culminates in marriage.

The obstacle to seeing the light is sin.  “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” (Jn 3:20) We men, when we sin, we don’t want to confront ourselves.  We avoid reflecting on ourselves.  We avoid prolong silence or prayer, because those two activities make us see our wrongdoings or see the state of our soul.  We distract ourselves with the many things this world could offer: entertainment, social media, pursuit of wealth, etc. to avoid that self-reflection.  We dread being alone and would always want to be in a company of others.  But it is only in having the courage to see ourselves as we are in front of God, that we can attain peace or when we stand in the light illuminated by God.  Pascal once said, “The solution to humanity’s woes is silence”. Pascal meant that it’s that lack of reflection (in solitude) or knowing what is going on in our life, that is bugging us or making our life restless.

All our lives we are playing hide and seek with God.  God is that Father who is seeking us.   We have to decide to be found by Him.  Only then will God come out of “hiding” in our lives (as we perceived Him often as Someone who hides and can’t be found especially when we need Him).  Only then will we see His face and know Him and know our identity.