Well, the holiday of lights is officially upon us. That’s right folks, candles, warm food, latkes, donuts, hot chocolate, presents, and the like are all in store for us over the next eight days of this miraculous and very delicious holiday. Cheer and glee will be had as we gather in warm, cozy homes to celebrate each night with friends, family, and community.
A running theme this year, as in all years, will the idea of “light,” or better said, “being a light” and “shining” our little “light” in the darkness. But, what does that mean? What does it mean to be a light?
Yeshua tells us in the gospel of Matthew “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) But what “light” is he talking about? And how do we shine so that our lives can be a testimony of our father who is in heaven?
This Little Light of Mine
I’m sure at one point in each of our lives we’ve heard the famous Christian nursery song “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine….let it shine….etc.” It’s a cute song and has a good lesson in it for us today.
HaShem in his wisdom created us humans, and as we know, no two humans are alike. In fact, we are all very different with various backgrounds, cultures, languages, personalities, and the like. Part of shining “our light” is first understanding what “our light” is.
For example, a person who is artistic holds within them a certain creativity that allows them to manifest their personality and ideas into the world through art. A person who is scientific and mathematic uses his unique skills to solve complex theories and equations as a way to manifest his personality and thoughts into our world. Neither is better than the other, but if the scientist were forced to be the artist and the artist forced to be the scientist we would lose the unique qualities of each.
Shining our light is using our unique strengths and talents for the glory of the kingdom and being honest with who we are and what we each bring to the table. How are we able to be the brightest “lights” for the kingdom? I think the first step is finding our own unique light. Once we find it, we can then mold it and turn it into a tool to help further the kingdom of God. Sometimes finding our unique strengths can be rather difficult in our young adult years, but these years are important and needed.
This holiday season, as you stare into the light of the hanukkiah think about the life HaShem gave you, the things you enjoy doing, the things you don’t enjoy doing and think about how you can take your little light and make it shine brightly.
