God’s Life and Light

For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

Psalm 36:9

Two principles that make life possible, meaningful, and even joyful belong to God and emanate from God: life itself and light.

Science has sought to define life, its origins and its boundaries, without spectacular success. They use terms such as “self-sustaining existence” or differentiate between things that grow and those that do not. Or they include something about photosynthesis, or some other scientific principle. Yet nothing is truly “self-sustaining” in nature. All is dependent on forces, environments, and elements beyond themselves for existence.

Philosophers and religionists have also tried to form definitions, but among them there is disagreement. Words such as “purpose” and “meaning” or concepts such as “lifestance” and “existence” as well as deity, fate, eternity and humanity’s part in it — all of these things also say something about life but fail to draw the picture with clarity or relevance.

Christianity answers authoritatively to this mystery — life is of God, the Creator, and with Him is not only the power to create matter out of nothing, but to create life- biological and spiritual. The spiritual existence of God is greater than the material or physical existence of the universe. No one may be said to be truly alive who is not connected in intimacy to God through His Spirit.

With God is the “fountain of life” from which springs all of life. Even the inorganic becomes part of the organic through the nourishment of our bodies by eating. And even the spiritually unliving become tools of God to build up the faith and character of those who trust in Him. He is the Master of all and the One who creates and sustains, who has purpose and gives life with meaning.

God is also Light, light that opens our hearts and minds up to see the world and our place in it, to see the hand of God all around us, and to see beyond our lifespans into the eternity He has planned for us. And in that light we see light, that is through Him we see everything else.

C.S. Lewis said: “I 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.” To know that everyday we live, God watches over us, and in every circumstance He is perfecting His purpose for us. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

Christ said, “I am the resurrection and the life” and knowing Him brings us into knowledge and into the purpose and plan of God for us.