Early in my walk with the Lord, I had a pastor friend who agreed to be my mentor. We met on a regular basis and enjoyed a good cup of coffee and a time of meaningful fellowship. As I was complaining about some of life’s challenges one day, I remember him saying, “The problem with you D’Acchioli is that you don’t leave the light on.”

I replied, “What do you mean by that?”

Then he explained, “Well, we all possess this remote-control light switch, it’s called Jesus. We are free to turn it on anytime we want. However, you seem to turn it on only when you are in trouble. You have to leave it on!”

It is funny, I remember thinking this exact same thing during the time of the Gulf War several years ago. Even the most liberal of the news media were on television asking the American people to turn to the Lord in prayer. I am sure that most of them did not even have a true understanding of what that meant; it just seemed like the politically correct thing to do. As a society, we have a habit of turning to God only in times of trouble. You see, we tend to get comfortable in the darkness.

The wise counsel of my pastor friend could not have been simpler, “If you leave the light on, you won’t find yourself in as much trouble.” Think about it this way. If you were to go home tonight and enter into a completely dark house, you would probably know exactly how to navigate around the obstacles that exist without turning the light switch on. Why? Because you have memorized where the obstacles are.

Now, what if one of your family members decided to move a few things around on you? You would likely enter into a dark room and stumble over those pieces that had been relocated. After your first Dick Van Dyke trip over the ottoman, what would you do? Turn the light on! Illuminate the room! There is no need to stumble your way through the darkness of life. What my pastor friend was really saying is that if you leave the light on, you won’t be tripping over stuff! It’s the difference between being ready for life’s inevitable minefields or wishing you were more prepared after the mishap.

D’Acchioli, Vince. Wired to Work! Huntington House Publishers: Lafayette, 2001, p. 34 – 36. http://ontargetinstitute.org/