"Our faith is a light by nature coming of our endless Day, that is our Father, God....The light is cause of our life; the night is cause of our pain and of all our woe....We, with mercy and grace, steadfastly know and believe our light, going therein wisely and mightily. And at the end of woe, suddenly our eyes shall be opened, and in clearness of light our sight shall be full: which light is God....Thus I saw and understood that our faith is our light in our night: which light is God, our endless Day."
How does faith occur? Faith happens when God persuades us of something that we can't see with our natural eyes. He gives us His sight, spiritual sight, to know eternal, unseen reality. Sin is to "not see" spiritual reality, to be blind or in the dark to it. What spiritual reality are we often in the dark about? We don't know God is with us and God loves us. We look around at the natural world and the way things work down here and we think God must work in the same way. We think He must stay distant until we have proved ourselves to Him or earned the right to be in His favor or presence. The world works by "there's no free lunch." Everything has to be earned, which is operating by law or performance. But spiritual reality is totally different, for God works by love and grace. We need to be en-light-ened or to have light in our understanding to see spiritual reality. The light we need is God's light. He is the source of our spiritual sight, or faith. For faith is simply being convinced of something you cannot see with your natural eyes. It is spiritually seeing, seeing unseen reality or God's reality with our inner eyes of the heart or spirit. God gives us this inner light. He doesn't want His beloved human family to be in the dark in their understanding. He shines the light of His love and grace into our lives and persuades us of true reality, spiritual reality: God is with us and even in us at all times, and we are His children, loved and accepted unconditionally apart from any performance on our part.
Being in the dark about God's love and presence in our lives, about our identity with Him, brings so much sorrow, struggle, loneliness, confusion and pain to our lives. When people feel unloved, they have such a big void inside and can seek to fill it and stop the pain of feeling unlovable with all kinds of hurtful things. But when we find out God loves and holds us and we are actually His dear children who belong and are accepted always, it makes us come alive, heals our heart, and lets us become aware of and enjoy that love that has always been there for us, that God and Father who has always been there for us! God is in the enlightening and persuading business. He won't stop showing us His love till He has convinced us it is true: we really are loved no matter what, just as we are, by our heavenly Dad.
The biggest persuasion God ever brought us was to become flesh and appear before us as God in a human body, to show us exactly what God is like and who we are to Him! In Christ we see that we have a Father who loves us so much He can't bear to have us estranged from Him or in the dark about His love and presence. Christ clears up the confusion about who God is, showing us He is not an angry judge but a loving Dad. We start to see our value and worth to God and how special we are to Him, and how He loves us no matter what, even if we lash out in anger and hurt towards Him. Christ is here even now in His Spirit, persuading us of God's love for us and our preciousness to Him. This is the light by which we see, the light of true reality that dissolves the darkness and melts away our sorrow and hurt. Isn't God good? He doesn't even expect us to "work up" faith on our own, but instead gives us His own spiritual sight to see what He sees when He looks at us. The light turns out to be Christ, to be God Himself smiling at us through Jesus' human face. For we see in Christ's eyes only love and compassion, forgiveness and understanding, tenderness and acceptance. We see in Christ the Father's unconditional love for us all! And things keep getting brighter and brighter, and we keep seeing more and more of His love and kindness towards us, till one day our faith will be sight. And then we will know even as we are known, and all will be love and all will be well!
Julian of Norwich (Ch. 83)
"For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light."
Psam 36:9 (NKJV)
"God said, 'Light up the darkness!' and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful."
2 Corinthians 4:6 (MSG)
"I pray that your thoughts will be flooded with light and inspired insight; that you will clearly picture his intent in identifying you in him so that you may know how precious you are to him."
Ephesians 1:18 (MIRROR)
"And they shall see his face; and his name shall be written on their foreheads. And there will be no night there—no need for lamps or sun—for the Lord God will be their light; and they shall reign forever and ever."
Revelation 22:4 (TLB)
A Prayer: You are the light that gives me spiritual sight. You are the one who persuades me of truth. Thank You for opening my eyes to Your love, and to Your reality of grace!