For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:6

With the nights drawing in, all the cars on the roads have their headlights on from about 3pm these days. When a car comes down our close, even with the curtains shut, you can see the light move around on the walls of the sitting room. Somehow, even though it only travels in straight lines, light gets everywhere! Even with our eyes screwed tight shut, if we turn to face the sun, our vision goes a dim red through our eyelids.

I pray that you may … know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:19

We’ve known for a long time that when children are loved unconditionally, they flourish – especially where that unconditional love is found in their parents and their home. From the safe place of knowing that total acceptance, they can try hard, fail hard, celebrate success, pick themselves up when they fall, experiment and grow in their understanding of themselves and the weorld around them. The effect of that may wane somewhat as they grow older and leave home, but it remains present. I spoke to someone recently who had just lost their second parent, and they described how, for the first time ever, they truly felt they were on their own in life.

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Genesis 50:20

Our world started in a garden. Everything God created was perfect, and on its completion He said it was “very good”. Yet the book of Revelation makes it very clear that the new creation will be better than Eden – better than that initial perfection. How interesting, then, that at the heart of the heavenly worship, and in place of the temple in the new Jerusalem, we find the Lamb “looking as though it had been slain.” Because of his response to all of our human failure and sin, God is more gloriously revealed in the new creation – now he has shown the full depths of his redemptive and forgiving nature.