By Steve Minor
Growing up in a small town in northwestern Oklahoma, we did not have a whole lot of “entertainment” in our town to enjoy as youth (until the yearly carnival came to town in August). So we made do. We spent vast amounts of time building forts in the creek near the house, riding bikes around town, and going to the lake to swim or fish. My brother and I would often invite our buddies to the church building where my father preached to have a “sleep-over.” We would stay up really late playing Monopoly, drinking Dr. Pepper, and eating my mom’s cinnamon rolls. When we got bored (or frustrated) with Monopoly, we would take a break for a couple of hours and play various forms of hide and seek in the building. All of us loved to go hide and hated to be the “seeker.” We hated it because the seeker had to start off in a room that had the light on and after counting to one hundred he would have to enter the pitch-black building looking for the hiders. Let me just say from experience that entering an auditorium to find people without having your eyes adjusted to the dark is a difficult (and dangerous) feat! 
While it’s one thing to take the effort and time to let your eyes adjust to the dark during a hide and seek game, it’s altogether different and detrimental to allow your eyes to adjust to the darkness of this world. Someone observed, “Don’t let your eyes adjust to the dark.” Have we allowed the eyes of our family to adjust to the darkness of our society without even being aware of it?   
Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount said, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23). Our Lord is helping us understand that if we allow darkness to come into our hearts/minds, our lives will be full of evil. A Christian’s daily focus must be full of light. Consider Paul’s admonishment to the families in the church of Ephesus in chapter 5:8. “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.”   Walking as children of light has to mean more than just calling ourselves a Christian family. It has to mean more than merely taking our family to church on the Lord’s Day, sending our children to a private Christian school, or listening to Christian music in the car.  
Light must permeate every aspect of our lives. And the more we get our families into God’s Word, the more we desire to walk in the light. The more we allow God’s Word to guide our families, the clearer our paths become. “Thy Word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).  
Don’t let your eyes adjust to the dark!  What a great warning to Christian families today! Have we allowed our eyes to get use to various forms of darkness?  Please allow me to ask a few questions: 

  • Are we adjusting our eyes to the darkness of violence? Do we accept things in our “play life” that God would think is evil in real life?  Things like sports, video games, or movies that portray fighting, killing, and the abuse of others are not acceptable to God. God’s Word says, “I will set nothing wicked before my eyes” (Psalm 101:3). 
  • Are we adjusting our eyes to the darkness of immoral dress? Have we accepted that Christian families are to cover their bodies in an appropriate way at church but they accept taking their family to a public beach, sporting event, or movie where the men and woman are only 10 percent clothed?  God’s Word says, “Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you” (Proverbs 4:25). Job said “I have made a covenant with my eyes; not to look lustfully at a young woman” (31:1).  
  • Are we adjusting our eyes to the darkness of worthless things? Are we so apathetic or bored that we can’t discipline ourselves and our family to abstain from things that are inappropriate or worthless? Media or habits that encourage us to be lazy, godless, or negative do our spirits harm. We must be intentional with the activities and time of our families. We must redeem the time and make good use of our Christian walk. Our family activities must not be dim, with a little light and a little darkness. We need to lead our families in pure light! The psalmist said, “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in Your ways” (Psalm 119:37).  

As families who are striving to get to Heaven our goal is to produce generations after us who are children of light. Just like the moon is the reflection of the sun, so the light of Jesus is to reflect off our families. Walk as families of light and don’t let your eyes adjust to the dark!