City on a hill
The bible tells me in Matthew 5:14-16: "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden….In the same way, let your light shine before men…"
When I think about this, there is a picture that comes immediately comes to my mind. This picture is a landscape and although I do not appear in the picture, it is in every way symbolic of where my life is without God.
As I stand an look at the scenery, I am looking at a scene through the sun blocked gloom of the weather as if it were night in the middle of the day. I look through the pouring rain that is being driven down from the dark heavily laden storm clouds above. Whilst I am looking the wind is driving the rain into my face and biting deep into my flesh. This is just like the worst moments of despair in the turmoil of my life, making it a real struggle to move forwards. The driving wind and the biting rain are forever pushing me back further into despair.
The land in front of me is a picture of rolling hills that are growing higher and higher into the distance. In the foreground, where I am standing I can see a desolate place where nothing is growing. Even the grass that used to grow there had been trodden down and the soil almost washed away to expose the bare rock at my feet This is a place where even the trees that used to live there have had their leaves torn off them in a time long ago. This really is a place of desolation almost as if it were mid winter on my side of the hill.
However on the hill in the distance I can see a completely different situation. The grass really is greener on the other side of the hill. Over there things are growing, it is a well cultivated land with hedgerows and trees that are dripping with fruit. In amongst those trees is a city on the hill that looks as if it has been there since the beginning of time itself and yet even time has failed to ravage its beauty.
As I look towards this city on the hill I can see a ray of crystal clear silvery light breaking through the rain clouds above and landing on the buildings in the distance. As I look I can see that there is a different light coming out of one of the windows in that city, almost as if it were reaching out to me. It looks as if it were reflected from the ray of light coming down but this light has a warmth in it that is almost inviting me towards it. This light is more powerful, it looks as if it could almost be the beam from a lighthouse searching through the night, looking to find a ship somewhere on the sea. Yet it has more warmth in it than any other light ever seen.
As I look at the light, I can almost believe that if I were to step into its beam, it would carry me right into the window in the city form which it comes. As I look closer at the light I can see that it is speaking to me, saying:, "I am the God who heals you."
Now I know that it is God talking to me and calling me into His presence.