Susie is letting her little light shine

'No one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light.'
Luke 8:16

We had a children’s talk based on that verse today. By good ol’ Barbara Clark, who insists on bringing her fairly irritating son up to assist her every time she does one. Today was no exception; however, it was slightly different, in that today I didn’t completely zone out and start thinking about anything other than the talk. She was ‘demonstrating’ the verse - as is always done to marvellous effect in a children’s talk – with a candle, which was supposedly some sort of heirloom, with a nice picture of the nativity on it. It was quite obvious that it had never really been lit and was never going to be. But she ‘decided she was going to light it’, and Theo (son) did, then she quickly covered it up with a jar, saying about how she wanted to protect it and keep it safe and the such. Obviously when she lifted the jar up, the candle had gone out because it had run out of oxygen (which Theo proceeded to explain to us and was met with gasps of amazement at such insane intelligence from a 10 year old. Whatever.). Anyway, even though she went on to talk about shining your light for everyone to see and not hiding it away; it was actually this ‘scientific revelation’ which got me thinking.

The verse talks about allowing our ‘light’ to shine out, letting others see that we have God in our hearts, and not being embarrassed or ashamed to let people know. We should not put it in a jar or under a bed, because then no one will be able to see it. But actually, in practise, it turns out there’s another, more scary reason not to hide the candle/lamp in a jar: because eventually, it goes out. I think there’s a pretty powerful warning in there, that if we keep our faiths to ourselves, if we refuse to share it, if we don’t let it ‘shine out’, then eventually it will just burn out. A faith won’t fuel itself, it needs more than just the wick of ourselves and the initial spark of the holy spirit, it needs oxygen, stimulation, fellowship, worship. In no way am I saying that God is finite, or will change or will ever leave us. But it doesn’t take a genius to realise that we are capable of moving away from Him. We can change; we can hide our faith away and starve ourselves so much of what we need, that eventually we allow our faith to simply burn out.

Susie is beginning to wish she hadn’t given up English, so she’d be able to write a little more coherently.