Hanukkah Night 4

John 8:12 is the reading for this evenings candle:

"Yeshua (Jesus) spoke to them, saying, 'I am the light of the world; he who follow Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.'"

I remember when my parents and I went to Virginia to attend my sister's graduation from culinary school and to bring her back to San Antonio. The second evening, we took some of the state roads to get there and to say it was dark would be an understatement...not only dark, but then it started raining, so it became doubly tough and dangerous for us to get there. I don't think I was as happy on that trip as when we got to US Interstate 95, wonderfully bright and lit, and to be able to travel in safety. 

It is the same thing with us before and after we come to know the Lord. Before we come to know Him, we are in a darkness of the mind, heart and soul. And many of us try different things to get out of darkness...education, drink, drugs, etc....yet we still end up with that darkness because they don't address the real problem, how to get to God. It's so funny, when you talk to these people and they say they are "enlightened", but yet when the first thing that comes that they can't explain, drink or drug away, their emotions and fears get the best of them and their lives become a tragedy. 

But then we come to know the Lord, and so often we hear the testimony of people and they say how their lives were transformed and changed. One of the ones that I remember is the late Chuck Colson, a man that had the reputation of being a political "hatchet man", but yet in the backwash of the Watergate crisis, he came to know the Lord and his life was changed from "hatchet man" to a man with a heart for God, starting the ministry of Prison Fellowship and being a lecturer and speaker about who God is and what He can do in a person's life. 

 And just think of what we can do as people of the light, bringing people from darkness to light, all we have to do is to be brave enough to share the wonderful Gospel of Jesus and show them how they can travel from darkness to light, so that they can go a wonderful and bright journey.