The other day, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning with just a terrible thirst. As luck would have it, I had a cup on the bed, which I hoped had some water in it. Unfortunately all it had in it was a straw. When I touched the straw, a tiny spark of static electricity lit up the inside of the cup. “How cool!” I thought, so I did it again. Sure enough, there was a little spark inside. I put the cup down and decided to just go back to sleep. Before I dozed off, however, I got thinking about that bit of light.

It was a tiny bit of light, so small that if I hadn’t been looking for it the second time I doubt I would have believed I saw it in the first place. If it hadn’t been completely dark I would never have seen it, it would have just been lost in the ambient light in the room. However, the room was so dark that it was hard to miss.

This world is very, very evil. Every so often, light jumps out that surprises me. People who I don’t think of as Godly at all, who attend no services that I know of, who swear like old-time sailors, surprise me by occasionally quoting scripture. Or perhaps by showing some decent morals in a most unlikely time. Just a couple weeks ago, I was teasing someone who had admitted that he “lived in sin” with his wife for a couple years before he got married. He wanted to justify himself, and started out by saying “With all due respect to marriage, …” and never got another word out. A second coworker of mine interrupted him. “Stop right there.” He said. “You’re not showing any respect to marriage, and certainly not giving it ‘due’ respect, so don’t say that!” The two of them started going round and round, but the second coworker would not budge. “You might be able to convince us it was OK to live with this girl, but you are simply not showing any respect to marriage in any way, so don’t say that.” I was impressed. This guy is not an atheist but he certainly isn’t all that God-fearing either. A flash of light from an unexpected source.

Something else about my water cup flash of light that I thought about. Like I said, if there was other light in the room, I would never have seen it. It would have been lost in the “crowd” of photons. However, that doesn’t mean it never happened! Consider this: There were many people giving money to the treasury when Jesus happened by. Some probably gave great amounts. But one little widow, with two little coins, caught his eye. This is a great lesson. Even though no else may have noticed this little flash of light, because it was mixed in with other, brighter lights, the son of God did. Every thing we do, great or small, it is seen by God. When we do something for another, and we get no thanks or even recognition, remember that God’s eye can see even this tiny bit of light. Our good deeds, in his name, never go unnoticed, never get overlooked.

I thought of all this before I drifted off to sleep, and when I woke up I thought about it some more. We are such negative creatures, we often dwell on the things we do wrong. So many people think of God as an all-seeing eye that is watching us to slip up and throw lightning bolts at us. When we have an opportunity to do good but let it slip by, we think of God seeing us and disapproving. But rarely do we think about the good things we do, maybe very small, that God also sees, and surely smiles. We give God cause to smile! Think about that!

Randy