The Light in the Middle of the Dark
April 14, 2025
Last night I was watching the best of “Britain’s Got Talent,” and what a refreshing change it was.
There are so many awful things happening these days, I had emotionally forgotten that there are still nice people in the world. The singers were such a delight and the audience so supportive and encouraging that I wept at seeing all the love interchanged among them (including from Simon Cowell).
This morning, I was reading an online audio Bible, Luke, chapter one, and came across this: “…there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah, and whose wife Elizabeth was a daughter of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God. walking blamelessly in all the commandments and decrees of the Lord…” (verses 5 & 6, BSB)
When I was a youngster, there was a young mother across the street whose kids were my playmates. She faithfully would mail Our Daily Bread Bible devotionals to everyone she knew.
Much later, I shared with her that I was certain her prayers had been both a part of God’s protection for me and my personal conversion experience of coming to Jesus.
She responded with her testimony of her coming to Jesus moment that it had happened much more subtly than mine and much earlier in her life. She had not really realized it until one day sitting in a pew at her church, it simply dawned on her that at some point in her life that she had been born anew.
It had happened to her much more subtly, because she was a nicer, kinder, and gentler youth than I had ever been.
Yes. There was a point that she had asked Jesus to come into her life, but since it happened so early,she had no recollection and it had since become just a natural dynamic in her life!
As for me, I had made my life a hellscape and had a more radical conversion experience as a young wayward adult…
At any rate, everyone needs that coming to Jesus moment whether they are good, bad, ugly, or young or middle-aged or old, doing poorly or prospering, happy or hurting…
Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ — John 3:5–7, NLT.
