The Light in a Dark Place
For a handful of years I taught outdoor education. We would hike kids around outside, stopping to learn about nature. The great thing about using an outdoor setting to teach is not it readily lends itself to turning nature lessons into life lessons. Jesus understood this: seeds on different soil was really about the condition of our hearts.
As part of our week with those kids, we would do a night hike. The redwood forest is pretty shaded and dark during the day due to the thick canopy, but at night, it is near pitch black. For many kids that came to us from larger cities, this was usually the deepest dark they’ve seen. That plus being in the woods often made these hikes an exercise in trust (in me) and perseverance.
At one point in our night hike I would gather the kids into a circle and stand in the middle. Then I would light a small candle and hold it above my head. Every time (and still to this day) it would blow my mind just how much light that little candle would emit. That tiny flame, barely an inch high, would cast a net of light 40 ft across! After a half an hour of stumbling through the dark, you could feel the warmth and comfort that little light brought to our circle.
I could go on for pages the different metaphors that experience would elicit. This summer at Kidder Creek we will be looking at the power of Christ working through us to illuminate the darkness around us and just how much that changes things!