God has been shaking up the way I see Him in His world! What’s at the epicenter of this spiritual earthquake? Jesus’ parables. On Labor Day weekend I ventured west from Virginia in my ’09 RAV4 for a long anticipated journey to visit family and familiar landmarks from my childhood to college years in Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. One of my stops was to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to Jacob’s Well, a church that I’ve been following online since 2008 or 2009. The pastor kicked off a new sermon series about the parables of Jesus. Unexpectedly, Jesus spoke to my heart in His familiar still, small voice I’ve come to know, “Let Me pastor you through them.” Although I’d heard many hundreds of Jacob’s Well sermons, this was the first time the Lord had spoken to me like that during one. So with great expectancy I entered into a five week journey into Jesus’ parables that the church had mapped out in a daily devotional format. It didn’t take long for Jesus’ pastoral care to begin, starting with this one taken from the Sermon on the Mount:
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 5:14-16 ESV
Though I’m very familiar with this parable, this time around the lamp riveted my attention. The lamp is passive. It doesn’t light itself. It cannot place itself on a stand. The keeper of the lamp does all that. My Father is the One who lit my lamp. I was once darkness but now am light in the Lord. The God who lit me is also the One who places me where He sees light is needed.
I’ve always known God to be sovereign and always present everywhere. Yet the secrets of the kingdom tucked away in this parable drove that point home more powerfully and personally. Being on the road, I encountered many more strangers than I typically do. Unknown people I pass by or briefly encounter seems so random. When surrounded by unfamiliar faces, though I’m confident that He is always with me, I haven’t grasped His deliberate purpose of placing me as a lampstand to shine among strangers. What to me appears random, is deliberate to the One who knows where to put a lamp on a stand so that it shine to those in darkness who need Light. My heavenly Father who sees all and knows all people, in His wisdom and love, places me on a lampstand to shine among them. God is doing all the rest, so I can just rest.
I had some deep soul searching how little I believed that about God. I returned to Valparaiso University where I’d graduated thirty years ago. After walking around the campus, remembering the past, I stopped for lunch at a Subway across the street from the dorm I once resided. During my senior year on Monday nights I led a Bible study with a couple of guys. I fasted all day and broke the fast after the study, walking over to this Subway for a foot long Italian sub and a chocolate chip cookie. I struck up a conversation with the friendly worker at the Subway counter, commenting about how it’s been twenty-five years since I’d been there last. When I got to the part about my past experience with that Subway, I purposefully omitted the important part about the Bible study connection. I presumed the man did not want to hear anything about God. I gave into conformity of what I think the world expects me to say.
Had the “you are the light of the world” parable that dawned on me the next day been alive in me then, I would have settled into the awesome realization that my Father has lit my lamp to shine with whoever He puts in my path. He wants me to be just be who I really am–light. All He asks of me is to shine. Just tell the Subway guy about the Bible study like you’d do in normal conversation. That is, be who I am in His Son. That’s all. Just be your (new) self. The Father who places me as a lamp in His world is to have more weight than what I think the world before me expects to do or say. So I’ve purposed to just be who I am in Jesus–light!
Glory Unveiled: Discovering Jesus 