Reaching for Light

In the material world, all plants reach toward the light. House plants grow toward the window. There is something in the heart of man that reaches up for something more than he can find in the world. It is Christ, the light of the world, that the soul’s true life is thirsting for.

A bulb of a water lily lies in the mud at the bottom of the pond. There is a hidden life in the heart of that bulb that cries for something higher. In its groans and struggles, it begins to rise. A young life springs out and begins rising, nor ceases to rise until it flowers in all the beauty of a water lily at the surface of the water. It then has met all that its life was craving. So there is in the heart of man that something that craves for a certain flowering. There is a life of beauty to which it longs to rise. If you will but give heed to the cry of this life in the soul, and give it freedom, it will climb upward until it blooms in the full beauty of the life of Jesus.

God has given a certain kind of life to every creature, which we call its source or its standard, or type. All life struggles to rise to its own source. The life in the apple seed struggles to rise to a mature apple tree. There is in the heart of everyone a cry for the life of Christ. Christ is the true source of the soul’s life, and that life can never be satisfied until it rises and blooms in the fullness and beauty of that life.