"The LORD is my light and my salvation -
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life -
of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1)
Today's exercise was to spend 10 minutes meditating on this verse. We are asked to light a candle (I lit the one pictured at the top of the blog) and think about The LORD and light... focusing on the qualities of the flame. To me, candlelight is one of the purest forms of light or illumination (with the possible exception of sunlight). I like being in the presence of a candle flame. It has a warm quality to it's light that no other artificial light has, but yet it's moving... not static... the flickering quality adds life to that light. Here at my desk, the candlelight pictured above offers a warm contrast to the cool light from my compact fluorescent desk lamp.
In our prayers this morning, we are to share our fears with God. You might be surprised, but I have lots of fears (no, I won't name them publicly), and when I think about these fears, I'm surprised that someone who's accomplished as much as I have still carries these fears around. If I stop fearing for a few moments and think about what I'm afraid of, I'm struck by how irrational those fears are... it's like being a kid again and being afraid of monsters under the bed, only to realize it's only dust under there (and in my case, Christmas decorations). You may have heard a phrase for this process of examining our fears... "shining light onto our fears".
Light vs. fear...
As children we're afraid of dark places... the space under our beds, basements, closets, dark forests, etc. As we grow up, we realize those fears are not rational. In fact they're quite silly. But I still remember being a kid and walking around the house turning on all the lights to get rid of dark places.
God overcomes evil. Light overcomes darkness. Hmmm... it reminds me of the first part of the Gospel of John (read chapter 1). Our meditation exercises help us to focus on God's light, which in turns helps us to overcome the darkness of our fears.
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