You are the light.

As a little leaguer i got hit by the pitch a lot. A whole lot. As in "i was the kid with the facemask in little league" - a lot.

As a result, i was afraid of a particular kind of pitch: the fast one. I was naturally a good hitter, but i remember sometime around the age of 15 i reached a point where the pitcher was throwing 90 miles per hour. That was the first time i understood the term "radio ball" so named because the ball made a sound as it came in that sounded a lot like the "fuzz" you hear on the radio between radio stations. That's just how fast the ball was moving.

I had never feared a pitch more in my life, and yet i remember being faced with this reality:

Nothing i could do with a pitch that fast would prevent me from getting hit by it. Am i going to be afraid of something i have no control over? Or am i going to decide against my fear, and go all in to standing in there and taking a full hack at the ball.

I took a deep breath and decided that would be the day i stopped fearing the ball. On the second pitch i rocketed a single right back at the pitcher's head, narrowly missing his face.

I can't say i lost 100% of my fear from then on (i ended up facing a guy that threw 94 mph once. Yahtzee! I went 2 for 4.) but i can say that i was forever changed.

In a really odd way, i wonder if we have the same sort of fear when we come across Matthew 5:14 when Jesus looks to a crowd and declares to them that they "are the light of the world."

When i put aside my fear, my ability to hit the ball came right out into the open and now the pitchers had to think twice about facing me.

When we put aside our fear and recognize that Jesus declares us to already be the light of the world, and to "let your light shine before men" (v. 16) we often well up in fear rather than show up in light. What if Jesus would have worded it, "Let your light shine so the darkness has to think twice about you."

What is it exactly that we fear? What will people say? What if i offend somebody? What if i'm wrong? What if i come across as prideful?

Here's what we fear: that we won't be in control.

Once i let go of the fact that i could not control that fastball from hitting me, i hit it.

The only thing the darkness can do is hide us, but it can not control us. And we can not control it. We can only drive it back by not succumbing to it and its fear-mongers.

Worse off, our fear drives us back from the thing we want the most. Success.

Perhaps success will be one for another time. But for now, consider the passage in Matthew 5:13-16 where Jesus proclaims that you are the light to the world. What are you going to do with that passage? Fear it, or hit it right on the sweet spot?