Shadow & Light

Today I sat down to pray wondering if God would really speak to me or not. I felt kind of complacent, but I wanted to be open. So I sat down and I closed my eyes to shut everything out. I asked Him, “What do you want to show me?” and then I waited. A few random things came to mind. Then I saw a picture in my mind of a shadow cast during the daytime from a flagpole.

It was long and skinny and the light from the sun shone on everything else. I nearly skipped the picture, but then remembered that God speaks to us in pictures sometimes and about things and in ways we do not expect. So I continued to focus on the picture in my mind.

Then I felt God telling me, “Joel, you have a choice. All people have a choice,” and He went on to tell me about how the shadow represented the freedom people had who lived in their way without God, and the light represented the freedom people had who chose to follow Him and live more by His understanding, trusting He is love.

The idea was that the path we can take on our own is wide, most trodden, and seemingly to many people, freer. But in actuality, the path that is less trodden, the one that is pursuing God and living with Him as the center and is thinner perhaps, is the path that has more freedom, joy, truth, love, fullness, etc. It’s where the light dwells.

It is that those who live in the light of God’s understanding have this expanse of freedom while those who live by their understanding are limited.

Limited in changing the world. Limited in serving and loving others. Limited in reducing poverty. Limited in helping HIV/AIDS victims. Limited in experiencing a constant, true love.