210 | Look Up and Turn On the Light

“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” (John 3:14–15)

Imagine walking into a building that’s pitch black. Or waking up in a room with no light. What’s your first response? Do you sit there and panic? Do you start wailing about how dark it is?
I believe you are more likely going to instinctively reach for the switch. If you don’t immediately know where it is, you stay calm, feel around, maybe reach for your phone’s flashlight, or try to recall where the switch is usually located. But you don’t just sit there and cry.

You know that the solution to the darkness is light.
The moment light shows up, darkness is pushed back. It doesn’t struggle or negotiate with the light. It immediately disappears as though it never existed.

So why is it that when life throws us into darkness; storms, battles, heartbreaks, tests of our faith, we don’t instinctively reach for God? Why don’t we reach for the light?
We do everything but seek God.

We murmur and complain. We talk endlessly about how dark the situation is. We magnify the problem, rehearse it, and analyze it. But we don’t switch on the light. We don’t lean into God’s Word. We don’t worship, pray, declare truth or fight back with faith. We just… sit in the dark.

It reminds me of King Asa. Scripture says he was a good king who started well and led amazing reforms that turned God’s people back to Him . But later in life, his trust in God waned. When sickness came upon him, a disease in his feet, Scripture tells us something heartbreaking: He did everything, except turn to God.

2 Chronicles 16:12 says “In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the Lord, but only from the physicians.” 

Darkness is driven out by light.

You don’t conquer darkness by debating with it. You conquer it by flipping the switch. For the believer, that switch is faith in God, obedience to His Word, and a heart fixed on Jesus Christ.

In Numbers 21, when the Israelites sinned against God and venomous snakes broke out in their camp, people began to die. Their disobedience opened a door to destruction. But when they cried out, God gave a strange instruction. He didn’t immediately take away the serpents. Instead, He told Moses to make a bronze snake and lift it up on a pole. Whoever looked at it would be healed.

The healing didn’t come from the bronze snake itself of course, in fact, it had no power. The healing came from obedience. It came from looking up, from faith and from shifting their focus from the sting to the solution. They could either keep staring at their wounds or look up and live.

Today, the same principle holds. Jesus Christ is our Redeemer and Savior who has been lifted up. He became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). He is the one we are called to look up to for everything. We are to look up to Him not only to remain in the light but especially in the darkest moments of our lives.

Look Up and Live

When you sin, look up.
When you’re weak, look up.
When everything is falling apart, look up.
When your child is sick, your finances are dry, your heart is broken, look up.
When your entire family is under attack, look up.

Looking up is the active decision to lift your heart, your eyes, your mind, and your hope to Jesus Christ. It is choosing to stop focusing on the sting and instead fix your gaze on the cross.

Hebrews 12:1–2 says Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

We don’t defeat sin, discouragement, or darkness by fixating on it. We overcome by shifting our gaze. By tuning in to truth. By choosing the light.

Get Into God’s Word

Hosea 4:6 says “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.”

This lack of knowledge is not just ignorance of information. It’s ignorance of God’s strategy. It’s the loss of focus. The refusal to look where healing truly flows from. Many times, the issue isn’t the problem, it’s our perspective.

God’s Word is light, power and life. Every promise, every command, every encouragement in Scripture is a light switch waiting to be flipped. But if we never reach for it, we remain in the dark, not because the light doesn’t exist, but because we never turned it on.

So today, ask yourself:
Am I focused more on my wounds than the Healer?
Have I spent more time describing my darkness than declaring God’s light?
Do I instinctively reach for God when life throws darkness at me?

Just as you instinctively reach for the switch in a dark room, train your heart to reach for God in every situation. Never forget that darkness cannot win where light has been turned on.