Years ago, my youth pastor taught a lesson that came from a fortune cookie. The fortune said something along the lines of “Don’t simply reflect the light of others; shine your own light.” As a young adult in stress-filled days such as these, I’m finding it necessary to remember this lesson. However, it’s not what you may think.
On the surface, the fortune sounds wonderful. Everyone has their own purpose, so we should each shine in our uniqueness, strengthening our talents in order to be the best and get the gold, right? Actually no. We were not made to shine for our glory. We were designed to give glory to God, in every area of our lives. True, God gave us each distinctive gifts and aptitudes, but we are not to use these to make ourselves great. That seems to be our bent though. Made to worship God, we end up worshiping ourselves, our individualism, self-reliance, and creativity, as if any of us have created or thought of something God hasn’t.
What if, instead of working so hard to make ourselves shine, we sought to reflect God’s light? What if we began to be filled to overflowing with our God’s love, joy, and peace? Wouldn’t our lives be so much easier? I acknowledge you, amazing human, have some remarkable talents that make you pretty cool. You way you can write a paper in 30 minutes flat when in a time crunch, the way you can feed three screaming kids at the same time without screaming back (most of the time), and the way you play the piano are all fantastic abilities. Strengthen them. Talk about your wonderful academic skills and musical talents in interviews. Share these with your friends and family. It’s perfectly alright to be pleased with any and all of your gifts and talents. Let’s just not forget the reason you are so special is because of God. Everything making you valuable comes from God who designed each piece of you.
In light of this, here is my charge: seek to reflect your Creator. Don’t work so hard to make yourself great. It becomes exhausting after a while. Fall in love with the One who designed you. He is great. To Him you are magnificent and oh so loved; reflect that love. I understand it’s not easy to do this though. Being filled with God’s love and grace to pour into others is often what happens after the tears of frustration fall because my pride is far too large. Humility is not a quality I have naturally. As I draw closer to my Savior I must become more aware of the harsh yet comforting truth that I alone am not great, not even good. With God, however, I have the privilege of reflect beauty, grace, and holiness. How much better it is to reflect rather than to shine. May we seek to be like the moon, giving glory to the One who calls us messy humans his own.
