"Why blame the dark for being dark? It is far more helpful to ask why the light isn't as bright as it could be." -Rob Bell
I've been looking through Bell's book, Velvet Elvis, today and came across this quote again. I love it. It seems that so often we shake our fist in the wrong direction. Countless times I've received phone calls at dinner time from various Christian organizations asking me to give money so that we can...fill in the blank. It seems to always be the focus of stomping out such and such atrocity in our culture. It seems to be some battle language panic that attempts to go toe to toe with movies, culture, media, or whatever.
Why don't we spend more time being "light"? Why don't we spend more time focusing on illuminating the darkness by reflecting the light of Christ in our lives? We can't stop the darkness of this world by shouting at it. We can't stop it by giving money to lobbyists to get politicians to vote a particular way. We can't stop it by sending boycott e-mails to all our friends. But. We can be as bright a light as God enables us to be. We can be different.
Both of our kids have nightlights in their rooms. I'm amazed at how dark the room is when we first turn off the overhead light, yet in a short moment the friendly glow of the nightlight makes it possible to see across the room. A little light goes a long way. A lot of people being the light of Jesus goes a long way also.
I bet the world would actually "come around" if we'd stop being so focused on fighting the dark of the world and focus on reflecting the light of Jesus. "Why isn't the light as bright as it could be?"
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I've never really known what to do with this, but in physics class in college, I learned that darkness really isn't a "thing," per se. Everything is made of something, usually. But darkness, in physics, is the absence of light. Simple. Profound. Even more compelling to be the light because it's wide open.
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