“because of the tender mercy of our God,
 by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness
 and in the shadow of death”

- Luke 1:78-79

Throughout human history, darkness has created anxiety and fear.

Maybe you’ve felt this. The power goes out in your house early in the night. You can’t find a flashlight. Scenes from scary movies roll through your mind. We feel threatened when we can’t see the world around us.

Darkness is often imposed on us from the outside. We don’t decide when the sun sets. We find ourselves “in the dark” or “in a dark mood” despite our best efforts. None of us want to live in darkness and in the shadow of death. Would you buy a house on 666 Darkdeath Court?

But Zechariah declares here that light shines in the darkness…and the rest of Scripture agrees and declares that the darkness doesn’t overcome it.

As a result of God’s tender mercy, we receive light. Just enough light. We receive enough light to know step 1, 2, and 3 and enough light to how the story will end. Everything in between remains mystery.

Sometimes we complain and refuse to act because we want to know steps 4-99. But we don’t get that. None of us do.

So we can either refuse to act on the light we’ve been given because we want information that we will never get or we can take that first step of faith, acting on the light we’ve been given.

Where do you need God’s light to shine today? Is there a place where you’ve refused to take a first step because you wanted more information that you might not ever get? What might it look like to take that first step of faith today?

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