Where does a light work best?

I was saddened to hear of Heath Ledger's death and I have thought about him on and off over the past 10 days or so. I know the place so very well that he was in before it ended his life.

It is a dark place and it feels like so many times that we all have these lights that are meant to be in those dark places and we're just not shining them in the dark places. It feels like there are just all these lights shining at each other in our churched worlds anymore because we stay so close to our light and not THE LIGHT.

There was this time when I was out drinking all night and had been wired on LSD. (side note:LSD will keep you up anywhere from 10 to 12 hours no matter how tired you are.) It was in the fall and the clocks had to - "fall back" - an hour. I forgot to move my clock back an hour.

Throughout the night I kept going through these spells of wanting to know God somehow. So being up all night, drunk, and under heavy narcotic use had made me so depressed and so desperate for help that I headed over to go to a church. I was desperate for light.

So thinking that I was arriving at church five minutes early I was hopeful to maybe talk with someone before it started. However, I was actually arriving during it's last five minutes. I literally stumbled in through the back door of the sanctuary and the last few rows of the churched folks swung their heads around, looked at me, then looked at each other, then looked me up and down and then they laughed at me. They seriously laughed at me. True story.

It was the last time I would go to church thinking that I'd find Jesus there. He eventually found me and it came through constant plea bargains on my behalf, endless prayers for me from the one who is now my wife and a small group of people that I despised because of their love for Jesus. They knew the Light and where He would go. They never stopped asking and caring. Their persuit was relentless and gracious because they followed a dangerous Messiah.

Jesus, the Light of the World, does not stay in safe zones nor does He aim to people please. He does not run to the gathering of lights but He seeks for the darkened places and rushes to them. He's been asking us to rush to them for thousands of years.

Ask this question: Where does a light work best?
Answer: In the dark.

You, follower of Jesus, are called to be light in this world. You have been given that by He who walks into the darkness and it, the darkness, does not comprehend Him. Which means the darkness cannot overcome the Light because it cannot get itself around the Giver of it. And the giver of light is saying you are the light so you go light up a dark room. NOW!

The day I heard of Heath Ledger's death I said to my wife, "I wonder how long it will take before some church says - that Heath Ledger is dead and gone because he played the role of a gay man and that's what you get."

Well, it didn't take long at all because it's all over Fox News now. Follow this link: FoxNews Report on Heath Ledger

I am so tired of this kind of publicity that gets into the news. It certainly feeds the frenzy of those who desire to gather ammunition against the Church overall but even worse it takes away from the very heartbreak that our Lord felt for Heath when Heath in his state of drug use and loneliness could not call for help.

Who is calling for help within an earshot of you?

I am sad over folks like Brittany Spears too, because one can handle only so much scrutiny before they put a bullet through their brain to escape it.

I am sad that Heath Ledger's family has to hear this kind of nonsense from a bunch of folks that slander the goodness of God by trashing on His very treasured ones. The lost coins that He is asking us to find in the crevasses of this world.

I will miss Heath because I always thought that he was a brilliant actor. I just never thought that his roles really pulled it completely out of him. (And I am not a perfect critic or even a very good one and I have friends that could do so much better in that kind of analysis of an actor.) The new Batman, however, seems to be quite possibly the movie that will do just that. I look forward to seeing it and I look forward to thanking God for the beautiful talent that was part of the one God created and was named - Heath Ledger.