The Unlighted Light Bulb

 The Unlighted Light Bulb

 “For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!” Ephesians 5:8

 Two of my friends and I were having lunch at the Farrer Road hawker centre last Friday and we shared our thoughts about discipleship. I noticed that there was an unlighted light bulb in the hawker centre. It did not make much of a difference as it was noon time. The following thought came to mind.

 As a Christian I am called to be a light in the world. However, if I am not connected to Jesus Christ, the source of my light, I will be like the unlighted light bulb. This brings to mind Mark 1:35:

 Without spending time in prayer, I may be a light bulb through my Christian activities but I cannot shine any light. The next day I found a journal I had written 35 years ago and had recorded the following thoughts:

 “We need to examine all truths in the light of the Bible. However, we tend to examine the Bible in the light of our modern “truths.” The Bible is also only a guide to confirm the other landmarks in our spiritual journey to God. If we use the B ible as the sole authority we quench the Spirit and make the written Word into an idol. On the other hand, if we totally disregard the Bible, we are expose to the wiles of the Devil.”

 Found my insights in the book, “The Cloud of Unknowing” - that we need to lift our hearts to God with a weak stirring of love, seeking God Himself and none of His created things. I was still struggling of how to reconcile meditation with the doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and in my meditation, I had the assurance that they were not incompatible.”

In my journal I had written about the request of a mother of one of my patients to pray for her husband. I wrote that my heart was uplifted as I experienced the power of prayer when he came for a consultation five days later.

The light bulbs that were lighted also did not make much of a difference as it was bright daylight in the hawker centre. It dawned on me that the light bulb shines brightest when it is dark. Likewise, it is in times of suffering and pain that we need the light of God.

During our lunch, I had shared with my friends the danger of focusing on the Bible, church and pastor instead of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit when we are living in our comfort zones. We need to examine our desires, thoughts and actions in the light of the Bible to move us out of our comfort zones. Jesus healed many people and cast our many demons as a testimony of God’s love and the power of the Holy Spirit. Dorothy Lee gives us the following insight about the miracles of Jesus:

“In a real sense, Jesus’ miracles push attention away from himself. He is no wonder-worker in this Gospel, seeking publicity and fame. There are times in Mark when Jesus explicitly forbids the disseminating of his powerful deeds and commands people to secrecy (e.g. 1:26, 8:26). Far from courting publicity, the Markan Jesus avoids it and retires into privacy again and again, either alone or with his disciples (e.g. 1:35). Indeed, it is not his power that will ultimately identify him but the very opposite - his renouncing of the power to save his own life for the sake of others: ‘He saved others, he cannot save himself’ (15:31).”

Our human ego seeks to draw attention to ourselves. The Holy Spirit leads us into the wilderness of our hearts to remind us of the reality of evil and the temptations of lust, greed and power that we need to face and overcome. The season of Epiphany is a time to journey with the Risen Christ to experience the power of the Holy Spirit in our everyday lives.