Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Philippians 2:15

 

Although she lived across the globe, the effects of the latest war in the Middle East had come to Zara’s community.

What seemed like a harmless protest on a corner in Zara’s neat suburb had ended with a man down on the sidewalk, bleeding, and hours later, dead. After a tense discussion about it with a neighbor, Zara felt exhausted.

Each morning, some are waking up to rubble and debris strewn across their homes. Others wake to missing children and wracking grief over a beloved friend. We were not made for this destruction and hate. We feel its alien agony wreaking havoc.

And yet, in this darkness, the Bible tells us how to live as children of God, shining like bright lights in a crooked world (Philippians 2:15). It says that God’s “…light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it” (John 1:5). In these times, we hold together by fixing our thoughts “on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.” Scripture directs us to “Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise” (Philippians 4:8).

There are many broken places in this world where division and bitterness are pouring in, yet these are also entrances for light and love. You and I can pour kindness into chaos, even just in our tiny corners of our world in simply ways like:

• Answering gently when someone speaks harshly.
• Making sure the people around us know that no disagreement can change our love for them.
• Sending someone an encouraging text.
• Making food to share with a neighbor.
• Hugging family and friends, telling them you love them.
• Apologizing if needed.
• Forgiving if needed.

When darkness closes in, we cling to, choose, and radiate God’s light!