My Whinese Cat, Roaches, and Jesus

Mike Hosey, An Elder

I paid for a good portion of my college by working in a small town deli/bakery.  Each morning -- around 4am or so -- I would drag myself out of bed and head to the “office.”  That office was a 20 x 20 kitchen in the far corner of an old grocery store.  As you can imagine, it’s dark at that hour.  Whenever I would click on the light switch, the dark would flee as the room became bathed in fluorescence. The light will do that – push out the darkness. But it will do even more. Every morning when I hit the switch, tens of giant roaches (and probably scores of smaller ones) would flee with the darkness.  Undesirables will always flee with the darkness.

Just last night, I became reacquainted with how important light is, and how we need it, as well as how we react to it.  Around 3 am, my Whinese cat was whining to go outside. I drug myself out of bed, and trudged to the dining area. I didn’t want to turn on the light because it might hurt my eyes, since they had been in the dark for a couple of hours.   So I skipped the light switch and plotted a course through the dining area to the back door of the house. I ran right into a hard, shin level, oak dining chair. In my haste to correct my position, and in my anger over my mistake, I took a back step and a side step, and ran into a pile of my hiking gear. The sharp end of a hiking pole caught the top of my naked foot just above the toes and plowed a nice furrow all the way to just below my ankle. When we’re out of the light, we lose sight of important details, obstacles, and usable paths.

Jesus told us that he was the light of the world (John 8:12).  That’s because his life example and his teachings can illuminate our paths. When we keep Jesus first in our life by following his example, many undesirables will flee from us.  When we keep him first, we will see paths that lead to life, wisdom, and peace.  But if we do not put him first in our lives, and continually keep him there, our eyes become accustomed to the dark, and they wince and experience a bit of pain when exposed to the light.  But even worse, we stumble on our paths, harm ourselves on obstacles we should have seen, and travel down paths that seem right, but instead lead us into those very pain inducing obstacles (Proverbs 16:25).