Light And Praise Must Fill Us Always Series

Friday of the Eleventh Week in Course 2025

The psalmist tells us what to do: “Look to him that you may be radiant with joy, and your faces may not blush with shame.” When should we be doing that, looking to Our Lord? And what picture should we have in our minds when we imagine ourselves looking to Him?

The psalmist answers the question about timing with a startling proclamation: “I will bless the LORD at all times.” At all times? Yes. Praising God should always be in our minds and on the tip of our tongues. St. Paul tells us in his second letter to the church at Corinth a lot of his own history with ministry and his relationship with the Lord. We’ve heard how during his time in Anatolia he was stoned and left for dead, yet a few days later he was back in the town of Lystra, preaching the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah.

He was whipped thirty-nine times on five different occasions. He was beaten with stiff wooden canes three times. All that besides being stoned for blasphemy. His number of shipwrecks suggests he had no talent choosing boats or captains, and he spent over 30 hours drifting in the Mediterranean after one of those wrecks. We also know that later in life he had what we from the South would call a “bodacious” shipwreck during his journey to Rome. So his life was danger, danger, danger. Yet the praise of God was never far from his mind or his mouth.

Why was that the case? He had this picture in his mind always—Jesus Christ, dying for him and all of us on a cross. Paul was poor in spirit, as the Master taught all His disciples to be. He earned his own way, even on missionary journeys. He took his tentmaker’s supplies with him and set to work when he needed funds for his maintenance or transportation. He stored up no treasure here on earth, because he never intended to retire in comfort. He asked God to keep him spreading the Word all the way to the end, and he did just that.

Jesus told us twenty centuries ago, and he is still correct today: “The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness.” One of the ways we can keep our body—that means our person—full of light is to be careful about what we read and watch. Sinful behavior fills us with darkness and habituates our eyes to evil like pornography or hate speech. We should be diligent in finding positive, Christ-affirming literature and websites that enlighten our days and give us good words to share with others. If we do this faithfully, we will become lamps for those attracted to the Word of God, Jesus Christ.