Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”

John 8:12

Have you ever woken up in a dark bedroom, maybe a little later than usual, made your way over to the window, thrown open the curtains – and felt a literal torrent of light flood the room? Or entered a house that has been shuttered for a period of time, then – one by one – pulled up the shades to see light wash over the space one room at a time?

Today, Saturday, December 4, 2021, my concluding “Light and Hope” post is about natural light.

Artificial light flattens meaning:

As a photographer I almost never – maybe absolutely never – use flash when I take pictures. For one thing flash is intrusive, for another it is simply not real. Flash irons out shadow and shade and depth and dimension; taken too far, artificial light can iron out meaning.

Studies show that when it comes to the beneficial qualities of light (they are physical as well as mental and spiritual) natural light is incomparably more effective.

Christmas lights are fun, and we have hundreds of them twinkling away around our house, but unless the light of God saturates our homes there is no life to the decorations, and all we have is a tawdry plastic replica that carries little truth beyond the warmth of nostalgia.

Every morning at breakfast Rebekah and I open the scriptures, read a devotional together, and invite God’s light to pour – fresh and invigorating – into the new day. Every day.

Each day of Advent marks another opportunity to further illuminate the meaning of Christmas. And the best way to do that is to let in the natural light of God’s goodness and love.

Light and hope – always – DEREK