I spent a fair amount of my afternoon swapping around the light bulbs in my house. The goal was to get brighter bulbs in my dining room. The problem was that my light fixture displays the bulbs, so I didn’t want to put in normal ones. Nothing bright enough looked right.

After all my swapping and switching,I called it good enough for the day. The true test would be how the bulbs looked after dark.

As I was preparing dinner, I glanced through the dining room and onto the porch. That looks like light, I thought. Could it be that the bulbs I installed were bright enough to light the porch as well as the dining room?

It took a moment, but then I saw it. The light source was the setting sun.

Sometimes the light of my faith seems to dim to the level of my dining room lights.

There’s enough glow to get the job done if I strain my eyes, but fear and worry lurk in the darkened corners.

Jesus claimed to be the light of the world. He did so publicly, confidently. He was serious. As if he was ever anything else.

The light of the world ought to be brighter than this, I say, eyeing the dark corners my faith doesn’t illuminate.

So I tinker like Edison, but my effort dims the bulb further.

Anytime effort comes before trust, burnout is inevitable.

Because if we’re focusing on light bulbs, we’ve missed it. Our faith isn’t a light bulb at all. We, in faith, are windows that allow the Light of the World to shine in–into our lives and on those around us.

To pull back the curtains and to let that life-giving brilliance in, light to complete the work assigned to us without fear or worry, we must simply do what we did to receive the light in the first place: receive, believe, trust.

In this, the shadows of doubt and fear are obliterated. This brilliance is a gift of God, the Light of the World, calling me out of what I’ve installed myself into the glow of something brighter, into light from the True Source.

And when people catch a glimpse of me, may they think to themselves, that looks like light. Not something I installed, but rather light of the Son, risen and shining.