Darkness and Light

-
Everyone’s story includes periods of dark places. It is the rare individuals who can honestly answer that they didn’t experience times when God seemed very far away.

Today, during our weekly bible study at Bud’s Warehouse, we discussed darkness. I asked everyone gathered around the table to share about dark times.

In a job training program working with ex-offenders, one would expect stories of bad choices, of times when one lived for self at a big cost to others. Indeed, those tales were told. But others also shared about the darkness of losing a loved-one and about the agony of feeling that the future held no hope. One person detailed the darkness of running into former friends and hearing tales celebrating the “good old days” of stealing, drinking and drugging.

Everyone agreed that our world is a dark place. They shared how the absence of light causes darkness. I listened as they taught that people choose darkness because they are scared to tell the truth of their life. They echoed Jesus when he taught that “men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)

We then read Jesus words in John 3:21 that “whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” We celebrated together the miracle of God saving in the midst of a dark world. Ex-offenders are blessed with a deep understanding of the difficulty of leaving dark places and the miracle of faith. And transformed lives are like a good infection. Those who move from dark places into the light infect others with the light of Jesus, transforming whole families.

We ended our study where we started at John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” This treasured verse offers the great truth of how the light of Jesus ended the darkness.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Accidental Janitorial Company: Freedom Cleaning Services

-
Sometimes opportunity finds you. In 2003, Cherry Hills Community Church called Baby Bud's Director Dianne Sager with a question. The recovery organization that had been cleaning their facility had just closed and Cherry Hills needed a new partner. Would Baby Bud's be interested in cleaning the school at Cherry Hills? Normally a retail baby store would think twice about committing to a job completely unrelated to its core business. But Dianne had 20 years of experience managing a janitorial company prior to Baby Buds. She saw this as a new opportunity to employ more single moms. Within a couple of weeks, Baby Bud's added five single moms for a cleaning crew and Freedom Cleaning Services was born. Within a year, the business had grown to employ ten women with several other churches and commercial businesses as clients. One of the challenges to any business start-up is maintaining the focus on your core business when other opportunities arise. Sometimes it's good to pursue
Read more

Opportunity Knocks at Belay's New Beginnings

-
Image
If an ex-offender finds a job upon exiting prison, research shows that his or her chances of going back to jail are significantly reduced saving the $50,000 a year it costs a state to incarcerate an individual. With that in mind, Belay Enterprises' latest start-up New Beginnings Custom Woodworks employs and job-trains ex-offenders like Patrick Stewart in a faith-based cabinet shop venture t hat was recently profiled on 9News and in the Denver Post . "I got out of jail 9 years ago, but was unable to find a job because of my past offense," Patrick says. "It was only when New Beginnings was willing to take a chance on me was I able to get off welfare and start supporting my family."  Before starting at New Beginnings, Patrick had never built anything before. Now he's become an expert in crafting beautiful custom cabinets. "At one point in my life, I was just empty flesh walking around," he told the Denver Post , "Now, I have
Read more

For a long time there has been a hole in international development and business as mission in the area of sales training.

-
I was excited to be introduced to the Whitten & Roy Partnership recently over lunch by one of its consultants. There are so many great organizations implementing ideas in the developing world that are not realizing their full marketing potential because of a lack of training in sales tactics or a sub-par sales plan. I've had many long conversations with a sales professional friend discussing the need for high-quality help in this area. A well thought out sales approach in developing communities can even be a force for bringing about systematic change in disadvantaged communities: This company is redefining sales tactics for the base of the pyramid SAN FRANCISCO — Scott Roy, co-founder of an international sales consultancy, was doing research for a potential client in Cambodia when he heard about a sales tactic he found appalling. A team tasked with selling toilets to families would roll into villages with a set of latrine components. In order to close th
Read more