Chasing Shadows

“I have come into the world as a light,

so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.”  John 12:46

Don’t you just love the Disney movie, Peter Pan?  One of my favorite parts of the film is when Peter is trying to catch his shadow.  I believe the way the shadow moved around to avoid Peter from attaching himself back to it was one of the neatest concepts the writer had.

I recall hours of fun when I was a child playing with my shadow.  I’d chase it around the yard, I’d make funny shapes with my hands, and I’d change standing positions to make my shadow either taller or shorter.

Sometimes a cloud would pass over the sun, or I’d get too close to the house, or to the shade of a tree.  This would envelope me into a larger shadow.  As long as I kept walking with my back to the sun, I kept stepping into my own darkness.  The only way I could lose my shadow was to turn around, face the sun, and go in the opposite direction.  My shadow was then behind me. 

There is no way we can run away from our own shadow, or, as in the Peter Pan movie, neither can it can’t run away from us.  However, we can turn around, putting it behind us as we face the sun.  We can walk out of the darkness and into the light.

Ephesians 5:8 says, “In the past you were full of darkness, but now you are full of light in the Lord.  So live like children who belong to the light.”  As Christians, it is sometimes easy to start walking in our shadow.  We get caught up in the darkness and before we know what hit us, we find ourselves enveloped by it.   But, thanks be to God, we have a choice to turn from that darkness into the light – and that light is Jesus.  When we do this, our darkness is automatically gone, and we are once again living in the light of the Lamb. 

This week may we choose to keep our shadows behind us as we walk in the light facing the Son.