I often find myself scared to let my light shine. You know that sweet spot of life, when you feel like you are living completely and authentically as yourself? That’s where your light shines most. Sometimes I let fear get in the way of my desire to live fully in that space. I’ve come to realize it’s primarily because I’m afraid of how people might receive me when I’m fully me. Being rejected for being only partially me feels a lot easier to accept than if I were to be rejected for being fully me. I know we can never please 100% of the people 100% of the time. I also know that when people aren’t pleased they usually voice their displeasure. Yeah, so that scares me too.

Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father. [Matthew 5:16]

There is no logic in dimming your light for any reason whatsoever. Perhaps you may think others will say you are arrogant because you claim to have a light that shines from within, because it means you claim that there is goodness within you to be shared. I know I fear that judgement. When it comes to this kind of talk, I usually find myself dwelling on the me when I’m at my worst and then I imagine that must be how everyone else sees me too… all that yuck. This is the point that I begin to buy into the lie that I am not good enough to think I have a light that shines from within. This is the point that I begin to think, who am I to think there is any good within me to even share with the world? But I know that there is. There is good in all of us. Some choose to allow more good to come through than others.

Why wouldn’t you want whatever amount of good that is within you to emanate? If you don’t let your light shine, then you are simply living in the darkness. You are instead choosing to live in a disconnected state of ambivalence. You choose to live a mediocre life, because it seems easier and it doesn’t rock the boat or call attention to yourself. But that state just encourages more of the same mediocre crap. I know because I choose to live within the mediocre crap way more often than I’d like to admit. And you know what? It mostly feels like… well… crap. It feels that way when I’m not doing what I’ve been called to do, or living out what I’ve been called to live out.

Some might even say, ‘well, that’s just the way life is and you should get used to it because we can’t all live lives that are anything more than mediocre.’ And I think that’s a bunch of crap. I choose not to subscribe to that way of thinking anymore. Instead I want to live a radically different life. I want to live authentically and unapologetically as myself, just as I was created to be. I want to live in that sweet spot of life where I come fully alive. We were created with purpose – the kind of purpose that brings happiness and joy to our lives and the lives of others. No, it won’t always be easy. No, you won’t succeed at living within that light 100% of the time, but what does it matter? If you don’t try at all you are living within that light 0% of the time. If you ask me, living in the light even 1% of the time is better than 0% of the time.

Live in the sweet spot of life. Live radically different. Live authentically and unapologetically as yourself. Let your light shine!