Mona Selden writes daily devotions for her church, Marion Baptist, in south-central Virginia. She is co-host with her pastor on The Mosaic of Marion podcast. She has published devotionals and Bible Studies. Her writing and teaching are done with the desire to help others get to know God better through His Word. Mona’s husband is USAF Retired. They enjoy serving their church together and spending time with their adult children and their grandson.
Many years ago, my husband and I did a backpacking trip in the Susquehanna State Forest in Pennsylvania. It was there that I experienced a dark so dark I couldn’t see anything. It was the kind of darkness your eyes are unable to adjust to. We could overcome the darkness, though, by turning on our lantern. Since we were backpacking, it was a tiny candle lantern, but the light it put out was enough to penetrate the darkness. It allowed us to be able to see and it comforted us.
John tells us that Jesus came as the Light. (John 1:4-5) He came and shone that Light in the darkness. When John the Baptist was born, Zachariah prophesied Jesus would «give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death…» (Luke 1:79) In the Bible, darkness represents sin and evil; without Jesus, we sit in that darkness. That is why Jesus came—to conquer sin and evil, to push back the darkness with the Light.
Jesus tells us we are to be the light of the world, and our lights are not to be hidden (Matthew 5:14-16). In the midst of the dark world we live in, we are to be a light. Jesus came as the Light, and we are to shine His Light for others to see and to benefit from it. Just as Jesus’s Light overcame the darkness, we are to overcome the darkness around us as the light of the world. We shine to point others to Jesus and the salvation He offers. We are to be a beacon of hope in this dark world. A beacon showing the path to true love and peace. We are—present tense, active and ongoing—the light of the world.
The Light has come. The darkness cannot overcome it. No matter what happens in our world, no matter what comes to trip us up, no matter the darkness that tries to overwhelm and overtake us, the Light has come. Let us cling to that Light. Let us reflect the Light and shine forth, for light always overcomes darkness.
