Intelligence is over-rated.

Moths, so far as I know, don’t have a brain in their heads. But they seem instinctively to understand something that we humans have missed.

We’re meant to come out of the darkness and into the light.

I was sitting in the office a few hours ago with the blinds raised and all the lights in the room glowing brightly when I noticed a host of moths fluttering at the windows, some pasted to the panes as though they might find a way through in spite of the glass wall.

And this doesn’t just happen at my office windows. When I open the kitchen door to a dark garage, waiting moths race into my brightly lit kitchen before I can get the door slammed again. I spend the rest of the evening chasing them from one glowing lamp to another. Some find their way into enclosed overhead lights and, sadly, die there trying to get as close to the source of that light as possible.

Moths, sometimes huge ones, congregate around the outdoor flood lights that grace the corners of my home whenever they’re left on for any length of time.

Moths, you see, are attracted to light despite barriers.

We humans, on the other hand, seek to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and the Light.

Why do we do this? Scripture gives this answer: Men love darkness rather than light because our deeds are evil.  (John 3:17-21)

My friend, God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5) His desire is that we draw near to Him that He might draw near to us.

And yes, our God is a consuming fire. Yet, the same fire that can burn down a house also can cook a hot meal and warm cold hands. The same fire that burns away dross simultaneously purifies precious metal.

Instead of stumbling around in the dark, bruising ourselves and piercing ourselves through with many a pain, why don’t we all turn to God to walk in the light as He is in the light? (1 John 1:7)

To quote Oswald Chambers, whose writings you may know through “My Utmost for His Highest”:

  To “walk in the light” means that everything that is of the darkness actually drives me closer to the center of the light.

If we’re hurting, bruised and can’t find our way in the dark, it’s time we admit that and come to the Light. God is not waiting to burn us to cinders. He stands ready to help us find our way home.

May we all someday say with the psalmist: “It is good to be near God…”  (Psalm 73:28)