You Can't Serve Two Masters: "Where the Shadows Lie"

"people preferred darkness to light" ~John 3:19b

You Can't Serve Two Masters

I stood outside with very little cover around me. Not a soul in sight. Birds began chirping, as they do, except this time their cadence faltered until their squawks meshed into a frenetic tune. As the shadows slowly stretched, everything grew dim. The hue of midday light brought an ominous variety not typically felt. As the time drew near, everyone became fascinated with the darkness.

That was my experience with the solar eclipse a few days ago. While we only experienced a partial eclipse (under 90%), parts of the hemisphere experienced a total eclipse-everything went dark.

This eclipse got me thinking about how I wouldn’t want to live like this all the time. Looking too closely in the vicinity of the sun could give you an ocular headache or even damage your eyes. As I already described, it didn’t really bring a cheery feeling. Imagine wanting to function day after day without the sunshine? The Apostle John tells us some revel in the shadows and prefer to function in the dark; moreso, they hate the light because it exposes their wicked deeds (20).

Jesus should be the Light in our life—totally engulfing us in His radiant glory. His Light is a lamp to our feet (Psalm 119:105) & should shine through us to reach others (Eph. 5:8). But if we’re honest, we allow to linger the wish for a partial eclipse in our inner-selves where we can mostly serve God while still having the option to serve ourselves. We justify it since, after all, we are giving God a bigger slice of the pie. That’s being a generous Christian, right? Wrong. Jesus says we can’t serve two masters (Matt. 6:24) and severely warns us we will be cast out if we try (Rev. 3:16). Brothers and sisters, do not be as one who John says loves the dark. The dark is the dark, even a small part. Rather, walk in the Light so that your “works may be clearly seen as done in God” (20b).

Always improve the present moment.