Looking Along the Sun Beam, Not Just At It

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A delicious bite from the dessert of my day:

C. S. Lewis illustrates what I mean by an experience he had

in a toolshed.

I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shin-

ing outside and through the crack at the top of the door there

came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with

the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing

in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was

seeing the beam, not seeing things by it.

Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes.

Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no

toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed

in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green

leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and

beyond that, ninety-odd million miles away, the sun.

Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very

different experiences.

The sunbeams of blessing in our lives are bright in and of

themselves. They also give light to the ground where we walk.

But there is a higher purpose for these blessings. God means

for us to do more than stand outside them and admire them for

what they are. Even more, he means for us to walk into them and

see the sun from which they come. If the beams are beautiful,

the sun is even more beautiful. God’s aim is not that we merely

admire his gifts, but, even more, his glory.

~ John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life

Far be it from me

to boast

except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

by which the world has been crucified to me,

and I to the world.

~ Galatians 6:14

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