Father of Lights

I read a quote recently that struck a chord within my heart: “A wise man soon learns that silence cannot be misquoted”. However, today I cannot be silent.

It is so easy to focus too closely on earthly matters and forget about the spiritual meaning in all that we have and all that we do. Please allow me to share some thoughts that God has placed on my heart about our mission trip.

When we chose the name ‘The Northern Lights’ as our team name, I instantly liked it. It reminded me of a song about the Father of lights that we sang during praise time at Cornerstone Church. James 1:17 says “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning”. What an awesome God we serve!

Genesis chapter one tells how God, the Father of lights, created light simply by commanding it to be. And it was, and it was good. He spoke again and again to bring things into existence. And it was. And it was good.

Then He did something different. He knelt down and with His hands used the dust of the ground to create man. The same Hands that would later stretch out on the cross to die for us were used to personally and intimately form us into human beings. With great care He formed us in His image, in His likeness. God cared so much for us that He focused on every single detail in giving us form.

The Father of lights didn’t stop with our external design--there was more to come. Genesis 2:7 says “and [God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being”. I believe that was the beginning of our spiritual life and in Philippians 1:6 God tells us that “He who began a good work in you will carry it on until the day of Christ Jesus”. What a blessing!

Arthur J. Ferch, author of the Bible study Genesis: In The Beginning by Review and Herald Publishing, noted that:
*God spoke: “God said”,
*God commanded: “let there be”,
*God fulfilled: “it was so”,
*God evaluated: He “saw that it was good”.

The author observed that our God is a God of action in that He separated, He made, He set, He created, He named, and He blessed. His actions gave purpose and meaning to our world and to us personally as human beings. His act, creation itself, was originated in the will of God.

Mr. Ferch continued on to say that “there is an inalienable dignity upon every human being” arising from our very creation. This is something we should bear in mind when serving others on our upcoming mission trip. Let us look beyond outward circumstances and see the God-given purpose and meaning of every person we encounter.

It is important to remember that our hands can be used by His hands--the Hands that created us--to do His will. An excerpt from God’s Best for Your Success by Word Publishing states: “Planning without seeking the will of God is presumptuous and foolish”. The accompanying scripture was James 4:13, 15: “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”;….Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”.

In conclusion, please pray for God’s will to be done concerning our planned mission trip. And that Hillside-O’Malley will truly be the northern lights that He uses to shine His truth and love on our southern neighbors.