This little light of mine....

I came across this story and it shares a powerful message. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

The O’Learys and the MacMillans lived as neighbors at the turn of the century. One day a young man in a suit came to their village to explain that they would soon have electricity for the first time. The MacMillans responded with their typical enthusiasm and filled out the appropriate papers to have their house wired.

The O’Learys were more cautious. After all, they had lived for generations without electricity and had managed just fine. They weren’t about to throw money after every passing fad. So they decided to wait. If electricity was as good as everyone said, they could always sign up later.

In the weeks that followed, the MacMillans busily prepared their house for electrical power. They clamped wires and sockets to the walls and hung bulbs from the ceiling. When the big day finally came, the MacMillans invited their neighbors, including the O’Learys, to a grand lighting party. With a dramatic flourish, Mr. MacMillan threw a switch and the bulbs began to glow for the first time. The MacMillans house was illuminated more brightly than it had ever been lit before.

There was a gasp. “How lovely!” someone said. But then another gasp, “How filthy!” someone else said.

It was true. No one had noticed it before in the dim light, but years of oil lamps had left a film of dingy soot over everything. The walls were grimy, there were cobwebs in the corner, and dust covered the floor. The O’Learys decided right then and there that they would never install electricity in their home. They would never suffer the humiliation of having their dirty home exposed by the light.

After the party, the MacMillans went to work. They scrubbed the soot off the walls and ceiling, cleaned the cobwebs and swept away the dust. They had indeed been embarrassed by their dirty home when the lights came on, but within a day, their house was cleaner than it had ever been.

Meanwhile, the O’Learys continued to live comfortably in their dimly lit home filled with soot, cobwebs and filth.

How many of us are like the O’Learys, and choose to live in the dark so that the dirt and filth in our lives won’t be exposed? It’s not that others will see the dirt we have in our lives; we fear most that we’ll see it ourselves. So we avoid the light for fear of the seeing the truth because if the light exposes the filth, we’ll have to clean it up.

John 3:19-21 says “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he had done has been done through God.”