Night Time

I had a lengthened thought process over the past two days. 

Scene 1:

My wife and I are sitting outside at Starbucks, drinking the last of a gift card and I was struck by how odd the sun is.  Think about it.  There is a big ball that hangs in the sky and lights up everything it shines on.  No joke.  I'm still not sure I can capture the feeling I had; it was probably closest to "Whoa." 

Fastforward to the next night...

Scene 2:

I'm driving home at about 10:30pm from dropping off my sister Brianna, whose birthday we had just celebrated.  It was dark, and the streetlights were glowing orange along the two-lane highway we call an expressway in the Midwest.  They were just so puny.  They had, compared to that weird ball in the sky, very little to offer, and barely made a dent in the overwhelming lack of light.

So here's what I thought to myself as I listened to my radio and drove through Springfield at almost 11:00pm.

"Humans are a lot like those puny orange lights that are supposed to light the night.  The lights do a pretty good job keeping people from breaking into stuff in the night, from hurting one another, and from being altogether rambunctious.  Humans do a pretty good job constructing systems, laws, and reasons to keep from descending into absolute chaos.  But its nothing like the sun."

I think that maybe when God began to redeem us through Jesus He was saying something like... "Quit building your street lights.  You need to be the Sun."