My Thoughts on Light

"For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God... search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ."

(Moroni 7:16, 19)

If any of you are like me, you may at times feel like a little black rain cloud is following you around all day, and you can't seem to shake it. You sometimes wonder if you'll ever "see the light" again. It happens to all of us. We have bad days, or bad weeks, or bad months. But it's not a bad life. When I think of this little black rain cloud, I am reminded of the phrase "shadow by day," which refers to the cloud that followed the children of Israel in the wilderness. The cloud was the Lord, and it was His protection and watchful care that got the Israelites through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. I've decided to turn this little black rain cloud into my "shadow by day," and also learn to depend on my "pillar by night." I want to turn all of these hard things over to the Lord, and He will lift the burdens that I carry.

My dad is the bishop of our ward back in Tennessee. He works hard, especially with the youth. He has been studying the concept of light as it occurs in the scriptures, which has inspired this blog post. I love light! Light chases away darkness, and it defeats the blues! It's refreshing to wake up in the morning to light streaming in through the windows. Your body needs light to feel good! Vitamin D and warmth are two important things that come from our biggest and brightest source of light. Just like our bodies need light to feel good, our Spirits need light to feel good too.
Psalms 27:1 says, "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" When we have the light of Christ in us, we have no need to fear, and we can do anything! We know that what we believe is the truth, and we can boldly testify of that. When we are righteous and worthy, the light of Christ is evident in us. "Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous." So when we are righteous, we are light, even in the darkest of times.

In Romans, we are exhorted to "put on the armour of light." How cool is that to imagine?! I can just imagine a young person, standing for what he or she believes, and radiating the light of Christ, in the midst of darkness and despair.
So now, my dear brothers and sisters, I issue you the same invitation. Put on the armor of light! Let your light so shine! The Lord has said, "I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldst be for salvation unto the ends of the earth." Be the one that reaches out and helps bring others unto salvation. I know without a doubt that we are God's children, and as we seek out light in the darkness, we will become children of Christ.