April 25, 2024
If you don’t already know this, we have six granddaughters and one grandson, Camden. Camden loves cars, legos, drawing, and his Buddy, which is what all the grandchildren call my husband Wayne. I know he loves me, but honestly he totally prefers Wayne. In fact, I’m pretty sure he has a small obsession with Wayne and I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual. He will run right past me to get to Wayne.
I have stopped getting my feelings hurt because he does want me when he’s hurt, scared, or hungry so I take solace in the small things. Camden is almost seven now but I can remember a time when he was four and was spending the night with us. He loves to sleep on a pallet in our room and he loves to come to our house.
He was perfectly fine until it was bedtime. That’s when he started saying things like, “I miss my mom,” “I wish I could see my dogs,” “it’s too dark in here,” etc., etc. I’m pretty sure it was just that he didn’t want to go to bed, however we still had to find a remedy to the situation.
My daughter came up with a brilliant idea. She went and got a 5x7 picture of our family beach picture from July and put it right beside Camden. We then gave him a tiny, maybe less than 2 inch long, flashlight. He turned this flashlight on and pointed it towards the family picture. That was all it took!
We didn’t hear another word out of him and he fell asleep looking at the picture with the light shining on it. I heard him wake up around 3am and he just quietly “adjusted” the flashlight to make sure it was still shining on the picture, and I said a quick prayer thanking the Lord that the batteries were still going strong.
I was thinking about this scenario on the way to work the other day and the Lord really spoke to me about this. My first thought was how Camden’s faith in the light was unfailing. He didn’t question or worry that the batteries might run out – he trusted the light would continue shining through the night. We have a light in our life too, only the light that shines in our life is Jesus.
I don’t know about you but sometimes my surroundings and situations in life overwhelm me. I forget to turn my light on them. These are hard uncertain times we are in. We are still dealing with a virus, unstable economy, the job market, etc., etc.
If I look at all these situations without faith in the light of Jesus it seems scary and worrisome to say the least. The good news is I don’t have to! The light that Jesus brings to any situation is my security. Just like Camden had faith that his flashlight would continue shining, we must have faith that God is in control. We have to look at everything with our eyes of faith shining on the light of Jesus.
Another thing I thought about was the fact the flashlight Camden used directed his focus on one thing. In his case, it was the picture. Because his focus was on the picture it eased his fears. Isn’t that the same for us? If our focus is on Jesus it immediately eases our fears and calms our spirit. The worst thing we can do in uncertain times is put our focus on the situation or our circumstances. Trust me, I know! Your situation will change and your circumstances are not reliable, but if your focus is on Jesus, He is in control of both your circumstances and your situation. My focus needs to be on Him and nothing else.
The last thing that I thought about was the fact that Camden fell asleep feeling confident and secure because he had family. If you look up the definition of family it says “all the descendants of a common ancestor.” If you are a believer then you are in my family, my brother or my sister in Christ.
The truth is we all need each other. There is safety in knowing we have family who will be there for us, will pray for us, will encourage us, and love us. There are times when we don’t know what to pray or how to pray, but our family can pray on our behalf. There are times when we are discouraged or down, and our family can encourage us and lift our spirits. We are called to not only walk in the light but be a light for others. We need each other.
I want to be sensitive to the Lord’s direction in my life so I can be there to encourage or pray for my family when they need me. I love that Camden needed some security at bedtime. We all have a need for security. Maybe we can try really hard to remember that our focus matters, our family matters, and our faith matters.
Let’s look at our life situations and circumstances with the “light” of Jesus and keep our focus on what the Word of God says, not the world we live in. Let’s encourage and pray for all our brothers and sisters in our family. These are the things that really matter. I’m seriously considering putting that flashlight that Camden used on my keychain as a daily reminder of what really matters. I might even put it on my nightstand. There’s nothing better than sleeping soundly knowing there is a light (Jesus) that always shines in the dark.
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Jill Johnson, a staff member at the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, finds spiritual applications in her everyday experiences as a wife, mother, grandmother and Georgian. Reach her at jjohnson@gabaptist.org.
