shareyourstorynow.org

“God Showed Me How To Shine His Light”

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

[Matthew 5:14-16 NIV]

Stacy writes:

So I went to go see the new Batman movie tonight against my better judgement. When I left the theater I felt sorry for the world and sick to my stomach and helpless all at the same time. Instead of going home after the movie, I decided to visit one of my places of sanctuary on a lake. As I was there praying to God about using me in this world to do His work and how I was also becoming somewhat impatient and feeling helpless, I turned around and saw a little light blinking right by a maple tree. Surely that was just my eyes playing tricks or maybe I saw a reflection off the water. There it goes again. A Firefly? Wow. The last time I saw a firefly in Florida it was God answering a friend of mine and I was there to witness it. I got this overjoyed feeling that maybe this firefly was God answering me now… how cool! How many times do you truely see fireflies around here anyway? So I crept up to where I saw the little blinking coming from and pulled out my phone to use as a flashlight to see the bug. My heart dropped as I shined the phone across this glistening string and saw that the firefly was actually caught in a spiderweb. Oh Man! I have to rescue it. At that moment I realized the firefly was wrapped up in a cacoon and conveniently placed smack dab center of the web. No way that is coincidence that the firefly just happened to get caught right in the dead center of this web. I realized then that the spider had trapped the firefly and showcased it right in the middle of the web as to attract other fireflies right to the spiderweb. What an evil little creature. I decided that enough was enough and to take the firefly out of the web and put its little body somewhere where it won’t cause other fireflies to be caught in this web. At that point I felt so discouraged so I prayed that God send me another firefly to give me hope, Please God give me hope that there are others. God please show me that there are others out there who will shine for you. Truthfully I was asking for confirmation that there were other people out there who are being a light to the world and not guiding people right into satans intricately woven web of sin. For 20 minutes I stayed out there and searched and searched for just ONE little firefly. Please God, are we so far gone that there is not one left? I felt like Abraham asking to spare Sodom while in search of one righteous person. After 20 minutes of asking God to send just one little glowing bug, I started to give up hope. And then all of a sudden it came to me,,, what if,,, just what if,,, maybe fireflies don’t only blink to attract other fireflies, but also to WARN other fireflies of danger? Yes! Thats it! It has to be it! This little firefly was actually a beacon to other fireflies to stay away, he decided to be a lighthouse to warn others of the danger of the web they may fly straight into. Thats it, I am going home to research my theory,,, do fireflies blink as a warning signal too? Guess what… YES they do. Not only will fireflies warn when they are caught in a web, but they will also warn others to stay away from YOU when you put them in a jar. How cool is that. I figured out what God was trying to tell me that night, the reason that I did not see any more fireflies was that the one caught in the web warned all the others in the area to stay away. That is what the second part to being a light in the world means when Jesus tells us to be a light unto the world in Matthew 5. Not only are we to shine as a Christian so un beleivers will see and glorify Him, but we are to be a light to warn others of danger. And what better way to warn people through experience. This firefly didn’t just randomly send out flashes while he was flying along saying “hey, watch out for spiderwebs”, no bugs would take him seriously. He actually got caught in this web himself and therefore was able to effectively warn other fireflies about the web he was in. Each one of our personal ministries is something we have been caught in or been through before in order to be more effecti ve at helping or warning others through the same types of things they encounter in their lives. I mean who is gonna want to seriously listen to you if you haven’t been there. They don’t have that connection with you, they don’t have that commonality. That is why God lets us go through so many trials, this way when we come out on the other side, we can help those who are about to walk right through it too. You can say to them,”Oh, No brother, I have been there, and you don’t want to go there.” If someone told me, “hey man, don’t go to that restaurant” Well why not? have you been there? “no, but….”. Now they have no merit with me in order to make a statement like that, but if someone came to me and said, “man I just ate at that restaurant and it was terrible” Now I will take it consideration.

Popularity: 8% [?]