Out of the half light
Yours is the day, yours also the night;
You established the luminaries and the sun. Psalm 74:16
Read John 9:30—39
Something about the way Jesus operates frustrates my inclination to sit on the fence. I’m thinking of the way he eyeballs this man he has healed and asks him to declare himself. He requires his allegiance. In my culture that is a bit over the top. Where is the room for another point of view? Where the tolerance? Why the urgency to have to decide? I can see that Jesus lives in an uncomfortable relationship with my culture. If I think I can live with him on the one hand, and an easy tolerance on the other, I am going to have an uncomfortable time of it.
Lord, I sit before you tonight, brought out into a kind of light. Because I have read of a man born blind but now given his sight. He is now in the light. And through some miracle as great as that I have been given sight too. I see the light of the world. I see a revealing light over my whole life. It is you. You have known my thoughts. You have seen my desire to take from you what you have given. Yet you see so clearly that you see it when I wish to remain only half committed to you. That would be to return to the twilight. So deal with that poor half-heartedness in me. Rather, let me live fully in the light. Let this man now be my leader in prayer. Let me say with him joyfully, freely, deliberately and gladly, ‘Lord, I believe.’