This morning, the moon was bright in the sky, even through the clouds and haze, it was glowing. And for some reason, as I stared at the moon, my mind wandered to lunar eclipses. (I know, not sure why my mind works the way it does at times.) The fact is that the moon has no light of it’s own. When it lights up the sky at night, it is by reflecting the light of the sun. But what is the cause when the moon “goes dark”, when it doesn’t glow. The reason the moon stops glowing in the darkness, is because the earth gets in between it and the sun. It is the same for us. We are called, as Christians to be lights shining in the darkness, we are called to reflect the light of Jesus, to a searching world, but when we allow the world to get between us and the Son, we stop glowing. The difference between us and the moon is that the planets are all on set paths. In fact, I would say that God set them on the paths they are on, so that we can learn lessons like this. The sun, the moon and Earth are on set orbits. Set paths that say that there will be times when the moon will enter into the Earths shadow for a period of time, and then exit that shadow. We on the other hand are not dictated by orbits, we have a choice. We have the choice to live in the shadow of the world, or the light of the Son. Granted, there are times when no matter how much we want to bask in the light of the Son, the world will intrude, and by a sheer force of will, cast it’s shadow on us. But what we learn from the Solar System is that it is only temporary. The danger we face is when we become comfortable in the shadow of the world, when we consistently allow the things of the world, to keep us out of the light of the Lord. When that happens, we quit reflecting the light of Jesus, we stop radiating, and we no longer stand out, becoming a cold lifeless thing that orbits the world. But, Jesus said that even though we may live in the world, we are not to be of the world. We may live here, but we don’t have to look like here. We are not of this world, instead, we are called to shine the light of Jesus in this world! So, I want to challenge you today, to think about where you live. Are you living in the shadow of the world, or are you living in the light of the Son? Are you allowing the world to cast a shadow on you, or are you radiating the light of Jesus to a dark and desperate world?