Illuminate

“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9, NKJV).

What makes you light up?

I ask because I don’t just think this is a feel-good question. I ask because I think that it’s important. More important than we know. So, what makes you light up? Come alive? Feel alive? Stay alive? Radiate life?

What makes you illuminate?

Frederick Buechner writes The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. In one of my favorite books John Eldredge writes that God is calling you wherever you come alive. I would say that God is calling you to the places where you light up.

We live in a world full of dark things. There is no end to the news reels of bad news. People feel more lost and alone then they have in any time during human history. Families are broken faster than they are created. They work endless jobs with aimless ends. The weekends prove to be a let-down for the hope they had stored up all week. People are tired. Or Wandering. Or alone. Or afraid. Or just a little dead on the inside. There’s enough of that in the world.

But what if you found that thing that God made you to do? And what if you lived in that realm of “gladness”? And what if you let God do what God does best – through you?

John in the first chapter of his self-titled book writes that in Christ is light, and that the world did not comprehend it. It may be that the world didn’t comprehend the light… it sure did make a statement though. One thing you can say about the light of the world: He cannot be ignored.

The world needs more people that light up. More people that live in the places of their deepest gladness, the places where they come alive. There’s a deep hunger, as Buechner writes, and that hunger will never be satisfied as long as people who are born to shine keep that amazing light veiled.

So what about you? What’s your deep gladness? What makes you come alive? Where do you illuminate?

Here’s to a day full of you letting God’s light shine through you. I promise you will meet a deep need just by showing up.