It has been awhile since I have written in my blog.  I have been facing my own demons over the past 5 to 6 weeks.  Nothing horrible or anything, mostly myself.  I have been teaching our youth in some areas that challenged myself, but those challenges also gave me new insight into myself and my walk with God.  As it says in Jeremiah 29:13 NIV  “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”  What I am discovering is as I am draw nearer to him, it calls on me to be more than I am.  As it states in John 1:8 NLT “John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light.”  I am being called to allow the light of God to flow through me so others may see it.

However, to allow his light to flow requires me to surrender, to open the deepest part of myself to be lit up by his grace.  Unfortunately, going into those areas can be dark and bring up emotions, thoughts, things that need to be exposed to be cleaned out even healed.  When doing my teaching on the 5th commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother”, I ended up dealing with emotions and thoughts I felt I dealt with years ago.  It is ironic when doing that teaching I was made to realize that when Mr. Ryan was praying with me to “Honor my mother” that what he was actually doing was helping me guard my heart.  My Abba Father knew what was coming and knew it would be those prayers that would allow me to forgive and love a woman who for a moment would be lost.  The beginning of my Junior year in high school my mother tried to kill me and herself.  She reacted to her medication which created a chemical imbalance in her brain which was already recovering from brain surgery a few years earlier.  Mr. Ryan planted a seed inside my heart of love.

This week I am teaching about being a light.  I have been discovering some of the things that cause me to hide my light.  Doubt and fear are my biggest ones.  I have been evaluating others areas like our youth program at church.  Is it being the light it needs to be for our young people?   As we are building this program, I do know that I do not want pride or position to kindle the power of the light that flows.  In my relationships, I do not want frustration or disconnect keep me from being a light to others.  When choosing what to do with my time, I don’t want to be so busy doing so many things that I cannot shine the light in me to brilliantly light the few things that our God’s purpose for my life.

My challenge to you is to discover “What hides your light from others?”  What keeps others from seeing the glorious power of God living in you?  As in Matthew 5:14-16, we were called to shine our light not hide it.