Light, Pathways & Journeys for Bible-Based Christian Living in the Varied Seasons of Life
Walking in the light and choosing the right paths and directions during your life are important to all who want to think and live well. Choices matter throughout one’s life and we must come to know and understand what the best choices are and regularly make those choices. Here are some perspectives to think about and possibly choose.
Light or Visible Radiation - What is Light and How We Detect Light
Scientifically, visible light is 1. a wave with frequencies (short to long: gamma radiation to red, infrared, microwave, radio) and 2. a “particle” (photon).
Light is still somewhat of a scientific mystery because light can be described and explained as a wave with frequencies and also as a particle.
We see light with our eyes and brain. Eyes are designed to detect images and colors as in any rainbow. A totally blind person or animal can not see or make images. If eyes are damaged, or the brain is damaged in the vision center, then there will be no vision, no image. Normally, the eye sends electronic signals (impulses) to the brain which converts these signals to makes an “image” that we can interpret. In one sense, if you think about it, the object seen is light radiation (waves), converted to electronic signals and processed by the brain to make something external to an animal’s body actual and “real” and experienced as present. That concept or idea, if you think even more about it, is amazing, spectacular and miraculous in itself.
Anyone who is color-blind cannot determine the characteristics and hues of certain parts of that visible light spectrum because certain parts of the eye (the cones) are defective. Nevertheless, the eye is a wonderful and complex organ.
Light Effects and How Light Helps Plants, Animals and Humans
Light is wonderful and helpful to life, survival and basic living. Green plants use blue and red light to capture energy and convert that to chemical energy. This chemical energy then enables the plants to convert captured carbon dioxide from the air to sugar, amino acids, proteins, oils and nucleic acids. And these foods are used by animals who eat plants (herbivores) to sustain these animal lives and ultimately the lives of carnivores who consume herbivores.
Photosynthesis is an amazing and miraculous process and event. And just as humans have learned now how to trap solar radiation with solar panels and convert it to useful electricity, photosynthetic bacteria and green plants have been doing this for many millions of years.
Let’s also think about the importance light in the following ways:
· White light and visible light and light of various colors exist in a narrow range of the total electromagnetic spectrum - 400 to 700 micrometers, blue to red. This light is what we detect and see in the visible and material world
· Light helps us to determine what is there and evaluate, apprise, understand what is seen by reflected or absorbed light
· Light permits us to determine the importance and significance of the visible: good or bad, helpful or dangerous, benign or evil, innocuous, inconsequential, desirous, obnoxious, etc.
The Bible and Scriptural References and Directions for Living in the Light and Walking in the Paths of Light
The references below speak about light and life paths and journeys as they are and will be for Christians who are believers. For true Christians bible-based, spiritual thinking and living are part of the fabric of a total and fulfilled Christian life. And this type of living and thinking actually works well in a combined and healthy combination. In life we need spiritual eyes for our life walk to see in the spiritual and intellectual darkness that bathes, surrounds, envelopes and consumes much of the world. Evil is the absence of good. Dark is the absence of light. A vacuum is the absence of air. Mindlessness is the absence of thought.
If there is a God and if God loves us and is an intelligent being who loves His creations, then God’s communication to us and with us should be real, verifiable and functional. The scriptures say this: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son that whoever shall believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16). As the author of what you are reading about here, I encourage you to consider and evaluate the scriptural quotes as to what is proclaimed by many as true and God-inspired words. Certainly, the Bible was written by men – that is a given point. It is up to all reasonable, thinking humans to evaluate and decide whether those words of the Bible are God-inspired or not. It is also important to decide whether they might might have inherent value even for agnostics and atheists. In our lives as logical and thinking humans –whether we be atheists, agnostics or theists – there is a walk of faith in the decisions everyone makes about whether God is imagined or real – whether God does not exist or really is as He said in the Old Testament "I am Who am." The atheist believes and has faith there is no God. The theist believes and has faith there is God. The agnostic does not know or has not worked toward a final decision and faith walk on the God issue.
Throughout history there has been and will continue to be darkness: the “Dark Ages”, “World Wars”, “The Black Death and Plagues” and many other events. These are all evil and bad circumstances. Knowing and walking in the light and on the right paths and taking the right journey is absolutely essential to survival and sanctification (spiritual wholeness and rightness). Think about God, light, paths and journeys as you evaluate the selection of Bible quotes that follow.
Scriptural quotes of significance about light:
Genesis 1:3-4. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light And God saw that the light was good;
Ps 27:1. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread?”
Ps 119:105. “Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.”
Isaiah 2:5. “Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.”
Isaiah 60:1. “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth, and deep darkness the peoples; But the Lord will rise upon you, and His glory will appear upon you. And nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”
Matt 5:14-16. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under the peck-measure, but on the lamp stand; and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
Matt 6:22-23. “The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
Luke 2:30-32. “For my eyes have seen Thy salvation, Which Thou has prepared in the presence of all peoples, A light of revelation to the gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel.”
John 1:1-14. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John. He came for a witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through Him. He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness of the light. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 3:19-21. "And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."
John 8:12. “Again therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.’ "
John: 12:35-36. "Jesus therefore said to them, ‘For a little while longer the light is among you. Walk while you have the light, that darkness may not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the light, believe in the light, in order that you may become sons of light.’ ”
2 Cor 4:3,4 & 6. “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
Eph 5:8-13. “for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of the light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.”
James 1:17. “Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with who there is no variation or shifting shadow.”
1 John 1:7. “but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Ways and Paths
Psalm 16:11. “Thou wilt make known to me the path of life.”
Psalm 119:105 “Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.”
Proverbs 15:19. “The way of the sluggard is a hedge of thorns but the path of the upright is a highway.”
Matt 7:13. “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it.”
John 14:6. "Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life; no one come to the Father, but through Me.’”
Source
The International Inductive Study Bible, New Standard American Bible. Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon
Rainbows formed by water droplets acting as refraction prisms. Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons (Pederson)
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