Send Out Your Light: A 5-Day Plan With Sandra MccrackenSample

DAY 4: Light Bearers The human heart is a deep well. Throwing a bucket down there to see what’s in the depths may be scary, but it often dispels the fear or shame that lurks below. When I pour out my heart to God like water from a deep well, I am often relieved. Sometimes, I’ve expected to pull up new monsters from those deep places, but instead I’ve found explanations or insights that have helped me to confess or to learn. Shame shrivels up when you bring it out into the sunlight of God’s love. The Scriptures invite us to voice our buried questions, so that the wellspring of our hearts can flow freely in the presence of the Lord. God draws out our questions to carve out the free, flowing springs of life that He intended to supply within us. While the end result of questions may not be answers, the end result of God’s grace in anger and prayerful experience of the Psalms is not fear or further injury but freedom, joy, and hope. By identifying our need, things we may have avoided out of fear often turn to reveal an opportunity for discovery—freedom from working so hard to hide our weaknesses. The fear of what we try to bury is not always in proportion to the actual danger. Many times when I am anxious and awake at night, the things I am afraid of are not as vivid in the daylight. The fear that is known, confronted, and brought into view does not have the power that it does in the shadows. Perfect love casts out fear and brings us back into orbit with one another. When we are no longer trying to hide or manage the monsters that wave for our attention, we have been made free and available for love and community. There will always be need. There will always be more we can do. Sometimes the need is a call to prayer; at other times the need is also a call to action. It’s often hard to know the difference. We are light-bearers, carrying his light out into the needy world. If you sing out a melody across an open canyon, sometimes you can hear the reverberation of the song before you can pinpoint the melody. But when God calls, it is a sure thing. God calls us through our warbly-sounding emotions. He prompts and presents his clear voice to us when we are listening for it.