5th November 2024

My daughter and I love to take the flashlight tour of the Baldwin Hotel Museum this time of year. We like to hear the history. Some of the people come to be spooked by the ghosts that may be there because it is a building that is over one hundred years old and with a lot of history. Ghosts or not it is an interesting tour. I love learning about the lives of others; their good times and bad times and seeing how they lived their lives. They experienced challenges, yes, but we all face some sort of challenge in our lives. We all need the love and grace of Jesus, and so did they in their everyday journey.

The challenge is to negotiate the museum’s four floors with only a flashlight. Everything we experience is there in the light of day, but it puts a focus on the items that tell a story. I have experienced though, that the story often changes with each tour guide, but I know that these individuals lived and experienced the light of God in their lives, as well as the darkness of this world. How did they experience God, I wonder? How did they accept or reject the graces of God? This I cannot answer, but I know the grace of God is given to all mankind. John 1:4 tells us: ‘The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone.’

Not everyone accepts the light of God (John 5:40). It is so hard to believe that anyone would choose this world over the grace of God, but it is a reality. We who believe in Jesus have the light of God, as I had the flashlight in my hand. The light, which is Jesus (John 8:12) is our guide to the truth of what this world tries to hide in the dark. The truth is always there (John 14:6). The darkness cannot overtake or extinguish the light of God. Jesus brings the truth of who we are and who he is into clarity. 

I like how the NIV puts John 10:10: ‘The thief comes only to kill and destroy; I have come that may have life, and have it to the full.’ The life we have is Jesus himself, and he does not hold back this life; he gives himself to us in full. When Jesus was lifted on the cross, he poured out himself; his life, so we who believe and trust him, may have eternal life in and by him (John 3:14-16). John 20:31 tells us: ‘But these [miraculous signs in John] are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.’ Life, his life to the full.

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