Jeremy L. Berg

I am not a morning person.  I both envy and secretly resent those early bird types.  A typical Sunday morning not long ago about sums it up.  I had stayed up late the night before getting some late night reading in.  When Sunday morning arrived more quickly than expected, my wife had already showered, dressed and had a warm breakfast waiting for me in the kitchen.  Keri yelled two or three times, as I tossed and turned, trying to catch a few more minutes of shuteye.  As breakfast grew cold, she began to lose patience and decided it was time to rise and shine.  She threw open the bedroom door, flipped on the light and began jumping up and down on the bed yelling, “Get up, get up, get up!”  The light was blinding.  Her voice was deafening.  The bed shook like an earthquake.  I wanted to cover my head and plug my ears.  But after Keri gave me “the look,” I wisely but reluctantly rolled out of bed, and with squinted eyes and stiffened joints, stumbled toward the kitchen.  

Similarly, when the floodlight of God’s truth bursts forth, illuminating every nook and cranny of our lives, we tend to shudder and draw back.  We feel exposed.  We want to hide under the covers and turn off the light.  When faced with “the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus” (2 Cor. 4:6), we can choose to open our eyes and let the rising Son illumine our path; or we can reject the light and remain in the darkness.   The Bible offers us examples of both.  

Perhaps the most famous example of the former is the blinding light experience of Saul of Tarsus — later known as apostle Paul. 

Suddenly a light from heaven shined all around him, and he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” …And he trembling and astonished said, “Lord, what do you want from me?” And the Lord said to him, “Get up…” (Acts 9:3-6)

Saul is on his way to Damascus to hunt down and kill Christians when he is stopped in his tracks by a blinding light.  Stumbling onto his back in shock and terror, the curtain is raised and the light of the resurrected Jesus exposes the folly of Saul’s mission.  Paul does not seek refuge in a cave, but instead embraces the light and lets it radically alter the direction of his life.   Paul faces the initial sting of dawn’s new light (Did he really have a choice?), and endures the coolness of the outside air as he throws off the cozy, comfortable beliefs of his old life as a zealous Pharisee and persecutor of Christians, and moves forward into an exciting yet unfamiliar new life as an apostle of Jesus.   

My Sunday morning experience was no different.  I had to face the light and throw off the warm covers before I could taste the delicious breakfast awaiting me.  There are many similar examples, both told and untold, but the result is usually the same.  God’s new day brings new life and new opportunities to those who are willing to endure the initial blinding.

Reflection Questions:

1. Have you ever had a rude awakening?  Students on our “Awaken” retreat last winter were rudely dragged out of bed for 2 a.m. broomball game in the bitter cold.  Were they glad afterwards that they got up?  Would they have missed out on something great if they would have ignored the alarm?  

2. What kind of emotions did Saul experience during his “Blinding Light” (Acts 9) experience described above?  Do we expect our encounters with the living God will always be “warm and fuzzy”?