Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do. Behold ye see that I have prayed unto the Father, and ye all have witnessed.

COMMENTARY

Let your light so shine before men
Yesterday I shared how I have seen in myself a desire to become a powerful champion of the gospel, and that I have done so by working on the qualities of persuasion that the world seems to value. Whenever I encounter a religious question, I rack my brain, trying to come up with the “correct” answer. Thus I perceive spiritual discussion as a sort of performance sport, one where I need to be powerful enough to push my theologies more strongly than any others. In all this I have tried to let my light shine…and tragically misunderstood the actual meaning of that scripture.

Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up
Because God is not asking us to pump the crank on our own sixty watt bulb. Frankly that light is insufficient to do anyone any lasting good. Even if I did manage to wrest up a convincing enough argument to satisfy one soul at one time, I would never be able to feed 5,000 this way.
Also, I rather suspect that God has little respect for our worldly debates and arguments, competitions where his children use the guise of “proclaiming the truth” to indulge their own egos.
This is not the shining forth that God ever intended for us to do. He intends for us to hold up His light, He wants us to say His words, He wants us to rely on His intelligence. Not ours. The next time I encounter a religious question I am going to suppress my default instinct to cast around in my intellect for the ‘right answer’ and instead humbly ask Him “what would you say?”