For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. - 2 Corinthians 4:6

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. - Genesis 1:3.

We often (or at least I do this) will talk about conversion as a set of steps that we take toward God over a period of time. While I believe that to be true, the picture I have of the natural human condition is of being in the forest in the middle of a dark, moonless night. Have you ever been there? You haven't known the "pitch" in pitch black until you have. Without a light source of some kind, you aren't going to "discover" or "take steps toward" anything except rocks to trip over and cliffs to fall screaming from.

The light has to shine first. Without getting into soteriological debates here, I think Paul's own conversion is not an extreme case. While perhaps the volume on his was turned to eleven, what happened to Paul on that Damascus road is, I posit, what happens to every believer. Light has to shine into darkness before anything else happens. That light will not shine by us rubbing mental sticks and philosophical rocks together. Making light shine in darkness is what our God does. Only He can do that.

I wonder if Paul wasn't thinking, when he wrote the passage above, about that terrifying, holy moment when he was knocked out of darkness, made temporarily blind but suddenly able to see more than he had ever seen before, face to glorious Face with the Savior he had been persecuting and who he now would willingly serve and for whom he now would willingly suffer.

In Paul's life, God made light to shine into deep darkness.

In the final analysis of each of our lives, either the light is on or it's off. I hope that the light is shining on you and in you today.