Picture a dark stage only lit by a single, bright spotlight. The only thing lit is the place the spotlight illuminates. Life with God can sometimes feel like a dark stage, but the power of God’s kindness is like a spotlight illuminating the darkness and making things brilliant and beautiful again.
To some, my life could be seen as a dark stage of events. I was orphaned at the age of nine with no living father and was faced with a dying mother at the age of twenty-one. But regardless of what life sends your way, we all have choices. Choices to stay hidden or to be seen. The choice to push past running to hide in the corners or risk dancing by yourself in the middle of a room. Life may try to tear us down, but we are all created with the God-given ability and privilege to rebuild.
Since the beginning of time, God has given humanity the gift of choice. In Genesis 2:16-17, God gave Adam a choice to obey saying, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” As Adam learned, making the wrong choices have severe consequences. But in our choices, God wants us to be less concerned with the dark and more reflective of His light. To live in the light, being fully seen and known by God, has eternal value and a great reward than you could ever receive hiding in the shadows and out of the spotlight.
When I started writing the song “Spotlight,” it came as a revelation of what God’s love feels like even in our toughest seasons. “When You turn the lights on, everything hidden in darkness with scatter. When You stepped into my heart, everything changed from the moment you came. I will move whatever You want me to move. Come and be the center of my every room.”
God is in the business of pulling us into the destiny He has for us. But we have to choose to actively step as He leads. God may expose darkness in our hearts along the way. But if we live in the spotlight of God’s love, shining in our hearts for all to see; all our fear has left to do, is scatter!
