Daily Devotion

by Pamela Olson 

John 12:36 – “While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of the light.” After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.

I returned to the western edge of the continent after spending three years alongside my husband as he went through seminary to become a second-career pastor.  As an introvert, the constant community of the seminary experience had completely exhausted me. I wanted to depart and simply hide.  The small Oregon town we were called to was on the westernmost edge of the country.  It is wedged between the Siskiyou coastal range of mountains filled with wild, unsettled places and the untamed Pacific. I went down to the beach almost daily for several months – decompressing from all that togetherness of a close Christian community.

Each day, the ocean greeted me in new ways.  The light was ever-changing-- sometimes the sun was bright, the sky blue and the water calm – the sun would reflect and dance across the surface of the waves as they approached then receded. The pelicans surfing the curls would spot their dinner from the sunlight glinting off the scales of the fish; the sand and rocks would warm in the sun’s light. Some days the sunlight was diffuse and obscured – hidden in the fog lingering as the tide changed. Each day, dawn would creep forward over the mountain peaks illuminating the firs and spruce, elongating my shadow toward the west, until the light would kiss the waves and change their colors from charcoal to blues and greens. I found light pooling in the quiet tidepools as the tide receded, illuminating the small creatures that remained ashore.  I caught the sun’s light streaming through the broken rock arches among the sea stacks offshore.

Lent seems intent on shining the light on the journey of Jesus and those gathered around him, hurtling full-tilt toward Jerusalem.  Sometimes it feels like life is just like that, running headlong toward some destination without regard to what might found at the end of the pathway. Yet, Jesus tells us we are the light and we carry the light within us.  Even after he is gone and hidden from us, we are the light and we are called to be a child of the light.

What does it mean to be “children of light”? The light is certainly not flat or static – it is dynamic and unknowable—physicists say it is both particle and wave.  It has the capacity of being any, and all, colors; it warms us and uncovers the places where danger may lurk. Perhaps the changing nature of light is a hint as to what God is calling us toward. As this season of Lent and winter turn toward Easter and spring, I encourage you to explore the light you have been called to be. What is God’s light illuminating through you?

1 comments on article "Daily Devotion"

Danelle Buelsing

I like the comparison of the changing images that you saw in the ocean and the mountains with being children of light. The focus on fluidity gave it new meaning to me.

3/27/2021 10:30 PM

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