Tag: spiritual light and darkness

Hide and Seek

Old Testament: Job 32-34

Poetry: Psalm 45

New Testament: Titus 3

Have you ever played Hide and Seek before?  In Hide and Seek, everyone tries to hide from one person, the seeker.  These players try to choose a spot that they will be the least likely to be found in, which normally ends up being in a dark or shadowed place, where it is harder to see clearly.  The seeker goes around trying to find everyone that is hiding.  They don’t know where anybody is hiding, but they may have guesses as they hear noises, see movement, etc.  But, have you ever considered playing Hide and Seek where the seeker just always knows exactly where you hid, no matter how creative it is?  


Real life is like that many times.  People choose to commit sins and try to hide them in the dark.  Everyone has times in their lives that they try to hide in the darkness and keep their sins to themselves, hoping nobody will ever know.  But, Job tells us that there is somebody who will always know.  Job 34:21-22 says, “For His eyes are upon the ways of  man, And He sees all his steps. There is no darkness or deep shadow Where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.”  There is no place we could ever hide our sins that God will not see.  God can see into every dark and shadowed place that you try to play Hide and Seek in.


Isaiah 29:15 says, “Woe to those who deeply hide their plans from the Lord, And whose deeds are done in a dark place, And they say, ‘Who sees us?’ or ‘Who knows us?’”  Hiding what you are doing in the dark will not lead to joy.  In the end, these things will lead to destruction and despair if you do not turn away from them.  Just like you cannot stay hidden forever in Hide and Seek, these deeds you do in the dark cannot stay hidden forever.  If you are hiding your sins in the dark, turn away from them and come into the light.  If you are not hiding anything in the dark, stand firm in the light and don’t let anything draw you into the darkness.


John 3:19-21:  “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.  For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

-Kaitlyn Hamilton

Reflection Questions

  1. How much light are you living in right now? How much darkness?
  2. What steps/sins are you trying to hide from God? What works better?
  3. What does it mean to you that God sees everything?
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Spiritual Darkness – and Light

1 John 1

Saturday, October 15, 2022

It is impossible for me to read this opening statement in 1 John 1:1 without immediately thinking of its strong parallel to John 1:1. John 1:1 says in the beginning was the word and 1 John 1:1 says that all they have seen and heard and touched – that was from the beginning (what beginning?) concerning the word of life. John was with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry, so he may be referring to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. There is a lot to unpack here, so I will leave that for another day, but you can think about some of these correlations.

John says that they are proclaiming the word so that his readers may have fellowship with John and his community, as well as fellowship with God and Jesus through the ministry of the word (that is an implication of having true fellowship with John et. al.). Also, John emphasizes that he is writing these things so that joy may be made complete. True joy, that transcends all circumstances, is a direct result of having fellowship with God and Jesus in a life of faith (see also James 1 for insight into the relationship between authentic faith and joy).

John then gets into a dichotomy between light and darkness. God is light and in him there is no darkness, therefore if we are walking in darkness (not in the midst of darkness but having elements of darkness ingrained into our life) we do not have fellowship with God. We are deceiving ourselves if we think that we can live a dualistic life embracing both God’s will and abiding in the ways of the world. Purity of heart precludes us from walking in darkness. If we’re doing this (walking in darkness), the implication is that we are liars and live a life that is antithetical to the truth.

Conversely, if we walk in the light (i.e., the truth, abide in the word), we have true fellowship with one another and we have our sins cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Walking in light does not mean that we have no sin, that would be a ridiculous assertion, but it means that we do not live lives defined by sin. We all stumble, but there is a difference between falling short and living in sinful pursuit. Our self-deception can come from being double-minded, or from a false notion that being forgiven makes us sinless. We are free from the bondage of sin through Christ, but we still fall short of perfection. In confessing our sin (and repenting of it), we are cleansed and through our faith are counted as righteous. If we don’t acknowledge our sinfulness, how can we confess (we can’t!)? Worse than deceiving ourselves, if we deny that we sin, we make God out to be a liar!

It’s not a good look to make God out to be a liar, so I would strongly encourage each of us to take into consideration our behaviors and not try to explain them in a way that denies the authority of scripture to call out wicked behavior and attempt to justify our (sinful) behavior as acceptable. Sin is offensive to God, so we should not attempt to explain it away as inoffensive. Confession is a powerful tool, and we should be quick to utilize this, rather than explain away or double down on any sinful elements that encroach on our lives. It is better to suffer for doing what is right now (deny our sinful desires) than to embrace sin and deception now and miss out on the amazing Kingdom of God (which will trump all imaginable satisfaction in this life).

-J.J. Fletcher

Reflection:

1. Do I regularly confess my sin to God? Do I confess my sin to other believers (1 or 2 people who you can trust) and reap the benefits of having accountability in brothers or sisters (who likely have had similar struggles) that can speak truth into my life?

2. What am I doing that could constitute self-deception? How might you assess and address this?

3. What relationships do I have that allow people to speak truth into my life? Do I surround myself with yes men? Do I live in an echo chamber? What changes can I make in my life that can help me more effectively eliminate sinful habits?

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