An Epiphany

I’m sure you have all heard this word used before, but today I hope to shed new light on it. I have always been fascinated with this word, and the experience of an epiphany. So what exactly is an EPIPHANY? An epiphany is the sudden realization or comprehension of the (larger) essence or meaning of something. With this sudden realisation comes new information or experience, often insignificant by itself, that illuminates a deeper perspective or frame of reference. Wow that’s cool.

If I think back over my life, I can almost pin point times when I have had sudden realization, when everything just makes sense? These moments are sometimes fleeting although they don’t need to be as irregular as they are. For me, they often come when I engaged with the beauty and majesty that I’m surrounded by; standing on top of a mountain, comprehending achievement, standing tall, looking out over all the world, creation, or sitting on the beach, watching the waves sparkle in the sun as the crash recklessly over the rocks, sending spray everywhere. Just knowing in that moment, that we are apart of something more than we know, that we are somebody’s. There are many ways to experience and epiphany, and that’s just one way of experience, sometimes they come in song, or in a word from someone, or a book, or in our dreams.

I decided to write about this because I read about someone referring to an epiphany as God is light… When you think about the fundamentals of light, it enables us to see things, it reveals things. Think about it this way, when we enter into a dark room, we cant make out what is in the room because we can’t see anything, but when we turn on a light, everything that is in the room is revealed. We can now see what exactly is in the room. In times of discomfort, confusion, day’s filled with challenges, when nothing seems to make sense, when we are unclear of our direction and the road ahead we cry out for these moments of realisation, moments of light instead of darkness… an epiphany… God’s light.

When everything is revealed…

In my time here, I have been praying this prayer and I believe that God reveals to us exactly what we need to know for the specific time and situation we find ourselves in. He may to choose to light your whole road ahead, even give you the map with directions, or he may just provide enough light to see were your next step is going to be, giving us the opportunity for us to express our faith and trust in Him.

We began Epiphany with "God is Light". Providing us with direction, then we move on to see that through our understanding we may provide others with direction, revelation, understanding…"We are lights". This is where we get to choose?

God has shone in the darkness all around us, streaming like a wedge of light through the doorway of a dark room. Because of this we have the choice of epiphaneia—"to manifest" is how the word translates from the Greek. We can choose to be lights ourselves: to stand from our place on the floor and to live as His image made manifest.

Speaking truthfully because God is Truth.
Creating because we bear the image of the Creator.
Pursuing justice and peace because Christ did.
Forgiving and giving because we’ve been given to and forgiven.
Savouring all that brings God pleasure.

"I am the light of the world." [John 8v12]
"You are the light of the world." [Matt 5v14]

So this is a two fold message…
One: God’s light reveals to us a path in life’s darkness and
Two: We are God’s light to other’s in life’s darkness.

I hope this brings as much meaning and hope to you as it does me...