🙌It's the Friday Call to Worship!🙌

My husband and I like to walk along the oceanside promenade after dinner dates. We were awe-struck one evening by luminescent waves. The ocean was glowing!

We were witnessing bioluminescence, a natural phenomenon of living things producing light through a chemical reaction. The ocean glowed as microscopic organisms called dinoflagellates shone light from within themselves, much like the fireflies of my childhood. National Geographic explains that the ocean's sparkle serves a critical purpose in nature. Even more significantly, these ocean lights only shine when their bearers faces turbulence and are best seen on the darkest nights.

All creation really does sing His praise.

You and I were not born with luciferin, the compound responsible for bioluminescence. It's not our inherent reaction to sparkle in adversity. However, before we were born, "In the beginning was the Word... and the Word was God... In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:1, 4, 5)

The Light of the world came to us, contended with the darkest night that ever was and ever will be, and rose again. And now, my dear brothers and sisters, "you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light." (Ephesians 5:8)

The tides will roll in and out. We will crash against rocks, and our shorelines will be reshaped. There will be storms and very dark nights. But will we glow?

Paul knew the rough waters of the world very well and exhorts us, the light-grafted image-bearers, to "shine as lights in the world" "in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation". (Philippians 2:15) The world doesn't have to be good for us to shine bright. In fact, the darker it is, the brighter He shines.

Listen to "Salvation's Tide" by Passion, and shine on!