{"id":6284,"date":"2020-04-21T20:07:40","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T10:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6284"},"modified":"2020-04-21T20:08:18","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T10:08:18","slug":"the-light-in-your-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/the-light-in-your-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Light in Your Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The Light in Your Eyes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Bethany Kaldas<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

\u2018The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light<\/em>.\u2019 – Matthew 6:22<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nis easy to look at the world and grimace. I mean, look around\u2014what do you see?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disaster\nafter disaster, fire, flood and plague. Starvation and famine in one region\nwhile obesity and obsession reign in another. Not to mention our own\nevils\u2014greed, violence, anger, lust, lies\u2026the world looks broken, destructive\nand morally compromised. It\u2019s enough to make one want to throw it all out, to\nsuccumb to the notion that what we have here is nothing but a lost cause. To\nsimply wait, gaze down your nose at a world gone bad, until it finally\ndissolves away. After all, it seems like this world is a Godless one, one\nwithout hope. There is nothing left for us here, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nbefore you ride off on your high horse, let me ask you this: How much of this\nis your fault?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No,\nno, I\u2019m not saying you caused every natural disaster or human evil out there (that\u2019s\na different discussion for another day). I\u2019m talking about that feeling you get\nwhen you look at the shattered world around you. That sense of despair, of\ndisgust, that feeling that all that remains is darkness and that God has abandoned\nthis world. Is that feeling coming from what you see? Or is it something else?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>St Augustine of Hippo<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We\ndon\u2019t tend to think about this much, but although we have very little control\nindeed over what is going on around us, we can control something. We can\ncontrol ourselves. If we cannot decide what it is we see, at the very least, we\ncan decide how we see it. My father has told me for many years now an old Stoic\nphrase: it\u2019s not what happens to you, but what you do with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\naren\u2019t some things just\u2026bad? How can we look at the torment of a dying world\nand do anything but weep?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else<\/em>.\u2019<\/p> C.S. Lewis<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It\nis important to remember that, although our hope is in \u2018the life of the coming age<\/em>\u2019, it is still true that \u2018the Kingdom of Heaven is within<\/em>\u2019 (Luke\n17:21). Heaven is not meant to be a distant thing that we strive towards, in\nthe same way that Christ has not really left this world\u2014because He is right\nhere. Right now. In you<\/em>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nwhen you realise that God resides in you, you realise something else. Something\nso wonderful it might seem, at first, too good to be true. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018For, indeed, everything about is marvellous, and wherever a man turns his gaze he sees the Godhead of the Word and is smitten with awe<\/em>.\u2019 <\/p> St Athanasius of Alexandria<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u2026You\nrealise that He is everywhere else too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nhow can God be present in a world so plagued by evils? How can you think there\nis any Light in a world shrouded in shadow? When disaster strikes and the night\nfalls\u2026where is He?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018God is everywhere. There is no place God is not\u2026You cry out to Him, \u2018Where art Thou, my God?\u2019 And He answers, \u201cI am present, my child! I am always beside you.\u2019 Both inside and outside, above and below, wherever you turn, everything shouts, \u2018God!\u2019 In Him we live and move. We breathe God, we eat God, we clothe ourselves with God. Everything praises and blesses God. All of creation shouts His praise. Everything animate and inanimate speaks wondrously and glorifies the Creator. Let every breath praise the Lord!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>Elder Joseph the Hesychast<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But\nyou see, it could never for a moment have been otherwise. God never left us.\nGod is all-good and all-present\u2014there is nowhere He is not. If you have closed\nyour eyes, how can you blame the Light for all the darkness you see?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwant you to look again. Look again at this weary and broken world, but this\ntime remember that He is within\u2014within you, within all of it. Remember that He\nhas not forsaken it. It\u2019s not a lost cause to Him. There is hope, not because\nthere is no bad in the world\u2014but because there is no bad in Him. And He never\nleft. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Believe\nit or not, the Light is all around you\u2014there is nowhere it cannot reach, no\nplace it cannot find you. The only question that remains is, will you let it\nin? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God<\/em>.\u2019 – Matthew 5:8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Light in Your Eyes By Bethany Kaldas \u2018The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.\u2019 – Matthew 6:22 It is easy to look at the world and grimace. I mean, look around\u2014what do you see? Disaster after disaster, fire, flood and … Continue reading “The Light in Your Eyes”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6285,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[300,52],"class_list":["post-6284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-light","tag-purity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6284"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6288,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284\/revisions\/6288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}