Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us. (Ephesians 5:1-2)

One of the things I’m going to miss the most about west-central Florida is the sky; it’s always big, beautiful, and vibrant with color. Especially those late afternoon/early evening thunderstorms.

Thursday was a great example. Rebekah and I had just finished another positive but heart-rending goodbye dinner, and I glanced out over the parking lot to see more dark clouds rolling in. But some of them were glowing on the other side, and they were edged with light. It doesn’t matter how dark the cloud is, you know that somewhere on the other side the light is brighter still.

I love the way the clouds help give definition to the light. There’s so much more depth and interest than when the sky is simply a one-dimensional wash of brilliance.

Even darkness, of course, is defined by light. Dark is nothing more than the absence of light; dark doesn’t have any positive value of its own.

Likewise, the only way to understand despair, or evil, or fear, or disillusionment, is in terms of distance from peace, or goodness, or love, or assurance. Sometimes all that is needed to counter the negative is to put ourselves in better proximity to the light.

I appreciate the sentiments expressed in the “Be imitators of God” passage from Ephesians. The best way to imitate God is to spend more time in the presence of God. That way we can become quite literally a part of the light.

THE ANSWER IS JESUS: This is what Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians: “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

The Message uses the following language: “Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.”

The cure for the darkness is God. The cure for the world’s darkness is us – you and me and every Child of God – spending more time in the presence of Jesus, so that we can become vehicles of his kind of healing, recreating, regenerative light.

In love, and because of love – DEREK