Boldness

A friend of mine emailed me about an experience he had yesterday while sitting outisde in an open shopping center watching people walk by him. He described a car driving by with raunchy music blaring from the radio, scantily clad girls parading around seeking attention, and young men arrogantly strutting down the walkway. He also noticed a father holding the hand of his young daughter, walking quietly in the shade without any of the attention-seeking behavior of some of the surrounding crowd. My friend's email ended with this provocative question: "Why do you think the darkness presses on with force while the light seems to hide in the shade?"

From scripture, the verse that immediately comes to mind is Ephesians 5:8, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light." This means, courageously stepping out of the shadows to shine in front of the world (Matthew 5:16). I say courageously, because it is definitely easier to hide in the shade than to spring out into the center of the action. When we hide, we avoid conflict. The biggest threat to the darkness is light. Nobody confronts us or persecutes us when we are hiding our light because we are not a threat until we stop hiding.

My friend's question really comes down boldness for Christ. Boldness is not just about being seen, it's about being heard. I can recall many times in the Bible when God's people are shouting, both for joy and for victory over an enemy. Shouting--not cowering in a corner hoping to go unnoticed, but in the streets shouting for everyone to hear [in fact, when I typed the word "shout" into a Bible search engine, the word appeared 59 times in the New International Version, and that is not including the many variations of the word suchs as shouts (19 times), shouted (53 times), and shouting (27 times)]. God did not call His people to blend into the background. He wants us to be heard above the noise of the world. He wants us to step out of the shadows for His glory, rather than hide to protect ourselves.

I think too often protecting ourselves our biggest focus. We want to blend in with the world, but God wants us to stand out. We want to be safe, but God wants us to be fearless (the phrases do not fear and do not be afraid come up quite a bit in the Bible as well!). In our myopic vision, we don't recognize that by hiding our light and remaining quiet while the world happily carries on the status quo of depravity, we are helping Satan's cause rather than Christ's. Christ wants us to stir up trouble in the world. He sure did, and He calls us to follow His example. Let's step out of the shade and into the center of the chaotic and fallen world that so desparately needs to see our light and hear our shouting.

Posted by Kim at March 23, 2007 07:25 AM