No Dark Corners

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
1 John 1:5 (ESV)

How do you finish the sentence "God is ___"? 

Most people say love, and they would be right. But the Apostle John adds another answer in 1 John 1:5, one that ranks among my favorite descriptions of God in all of Scripture. "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all."

Think about what light actually does. Scientists tell us that if the sun's light ceased, the earth would freeze within days. Every plant would die and the oxygen level would collapse. Within weeks, humanity would perish, and there would be nothing left but a frozen, dead rock. Light is not a luxury. It is foundational to everything that lives.

And think about its purity. You can shine light through a sewer and it comes out unchanged. Smoke can block it, dust can scatter it, glass can bend it, but nothing on earth can make light dirty. It is morally untouchable. Light reaches into the darkest place and comes out exactly as it went in.

That is the God John is describing. He is not almost pure, or mostly light with a shadow here and there. Our God is One in whom there is no darkness at all.

When you truly see who God is, everything else comes into focus. Let His light shine into the resentment you've been feeding for three years or the prayer you stopped praying because you stopped believing He was listening. Light does not negotiate with those places. It just shows up and does what it does, exposing what is false and purifying what remains. 

Let Him in today. Open up every corner, because in Him there is no darkness at all.

Prayer: Sovereign Lord, creator of heaven and earth, You know the very breadth of the universe and still You see and care about every corner of my heart. Open my eyes today to who You really are. Teach me how to live in the light without shadow and in Your love without limit. In Jesus' Name, Amen.