Northern lights and the power of love…
How to be a blessing!
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear 1 John 4:18
Arriving back home late from a meeting this week, I discovered the pink haze of the northern lights once more lighting up our street, as I drove down it.
I was struck by how these distant lights, seen through a lens, become even more intense, the opposite of a sunset, which despite being close, seems pale and faded when I try to capture it on a camera.
We all see things through a lens in a way, the lens of our own making, for good or for ill, our life can seem rose tinted, or monochrome, depending on our mood in that moment.
As we embark upon a new project at the thirteenth century church in Bassingbourn - which at the same time is a very old project - making the building ready for the next generation of worshippers (not renovated in such a full way since 1865), I am struck by how for some in the village and beyond, this is a wonderful gain, a moment of great joy and elation, whilst for others it is a time of fear and uncertainty. It just depends on the lens through which they see this change. Yet Christ encourages us to give our fears over to Him. Change is inevitable, how we choose to see it, is up to us.
We are all encouraged to step out of our comfort zone by Christ’s example. He was both the fulfilment of the law and the threat to it. His arrival was inevitably the “change” some who followed the law were not expecting, nor indeed wanting and others were longing for. He made the law both simpler and more complicated. We cannot take things just at face value, we have to see each circumstance for what it is, the motivation behind the rule, its power to heal, or to wound others, or even ourselves. When we embrace the risk of something new and fresh, we need to let His perfect love cast out our fear, in order to not become ‘stuck’ and irrelevant, at the same time we need to hold on to what is good and true.
Not all change is good, or fair or right. We need to seek wisdom from the source of all wisdom. So to open ourselves up to ‘change’ is to look at each change on its on merit and see if it ‘upholds the law’ or binds it. Is it truly loving for all, or not? As we ourselves continue to change throughout our lives, we can look up and out at the light, or miss it by being too inward looking. If we make life simply just about ‘us’ we become more and more alone- if we make it about the world around us we grow and see what others may miss, but it all needs to be based on the love that holds all, is in all, and sustains all.
We can only truly cast out our fears, whatever they may be, as and when we embrace that unconditional, everlasting loving source which says a big “yes” to life. We can only truly turn to love our ‘unlovable’ or even lovable neighbour, or family member, from that full reservoir of grace, poured out from the cross, given freely and flowing down to us, from the son. By allowing this love in, we let it fill us up, overflowing in us, from that forgiving limitless source of love, to all those around us, allowing us to truly let go and love ourselves in the first place.
The closer we walk alongside the outrageous love of Christ, the more we are given eyes to see the world as God sees it, to look where the pink glow resides on every face and in the depths of the hearts of every creature walking this earth.
So today, let us try to look through that lens of love, see the pink, not just in the sky, but all around us. Despite the darkness raging, Imagine a light of hope, embodied in each human being we meet, each face with that potential for love and joy that we have freely received and can freely give. And, so in greeting them with this hopeful heart, forgetting what hinders us from the past, reaching ahead to the race set before us, be a blessing!
And so…. be blessed!
Helen
