Walking in the Light

I was feeling angry and anxious about something that, in reality, was pretty trivial. I tried hard to get rid of my negativity but, no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t budge. Feeling absolutely helpless and frustrated, I cried out to God - literally, I was bawling. I told God how unable I was to conquer my sinful feelings and expressed my hopelessness. I truly felt my spiritual inadequacy in a new way and, little did I know, God was going to use that.

After I had cried most of my tears, the Lord placed a thought in my mind. When I go through something difficult, I tend to base my success (and God’s success) on how well I control my emotions and, ultimately, how well I handle the situation. However, as much as God does judge selfish emotions as sin, the main factor is simply that we trust Him - even through the trial (or sub-trial) of having emotions. In fact, when I realized that my spiritual success is not dependent on my emotions or performance, I actually felt some relief - like a part of my burden had fallen off of me.

During all of this, I had been walking around our property for exercise and, shortly after God spoke to me, I took my sweater off because I was hot from the warm weather. As soon as I did this, I sensed God speaking to me a second time. My sweater was black and, just as taking it off allowed me to be fully exposed to the sunshine, so the truth God had spoken to me earlier was leading me from holding on to spiritual darkness to walking completely in The Light.

As a believer, I was never not in The Light but my dark sweater had blocked some of The Light’s rays - and it happened to cover the places where I need light and life the most (physically and spiritually). My insistence on dealing with my sin on my own was the darkness that was keeping me from experiencing true trust in God. Even when I invited God into my situation and asked Him to help me, I was asking Him to help ME instead of letting HIM be in control. “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7 (NIV - 1978 revision)