It’s funny how Pavlovian our brains can be.  Once an association is made, it can be painfully difficult to detach. Take, for example, the Mick Ray song from 1978, “I get so excited Lord every time I realise… I’ve forgiven, I’m forgiven” (yep, showing my age there). It’s not a song that crops up often nowadays, but if it did, my mind would no doubt jump straight to the memory of my husband and friends in mischievous mode, deliberately mis-singing “every time I realise… I’m a gibbon, I’m a gibbon”. Then there’s the more innocent association of not being able to hear a sermon about the disciples without remembering my first child in all his adorable infancy unable to pronounce the word, so calling them “surprisels” instead. Heart-achingly cute, and all the more poignant because said adorable child is now a 6ft 5in grown man with stubble and a razor-sharp wit.

Whether these word-associations/ mispronunciations are deliberate or innocent, they cling stubbornly to our psyches, and can sometimes even interrupt our Bible reading.  I’m thinking of Isaiah 60:1 – “Arise, shine, for your light has come…”  a verse which I rarely read past the first two words without an inane chorus of hand-puppets taking over my mind, singing “and give God the glory, glory”.  Please reassure me I’m not the only one…?  Who else has a tripwire in worship or the Word?

See, reading the Bible can be hard enough without the distracting combination of an active imagination and the conditioning espoused by Mr Pavlov.

But when I read Isaiah 60:1-2 the other day, something remarkable happened. The chorus appeared as they usually do, but then so did the Holy Spirit.
And I read, “Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the LORD will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you.” (NKJV)

And another, mercifully non-puppet association came to mind:
Matthew 5:14-16 says “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

God has spoken to me from this part of Matthew 5 before, convicting me of His desire for me to embrace that dreaded of activities, “promo”, as a way of lifting high the light He has given me to share, for all to see. So it’s already a treasured verse. And this time as I read both verses together I had a sudden mental image that was nothing to do with Pavlov, but – I believe – a lot more divinely inspired.

I saw a room filled with candles, of all different shapes and sizes. Fat, thin, tall, short, and in a whole spectrum of colours.  The light in the room drew dim, until it was so dark you couldn’t see the candles at all. But then a match was lit and began to touch the candlewicks. And as each candle started to burn, the room became filled with countless identical flames, each one adding to the light in the room. No matter the size or shape of each candle, each one burned with an equal flame, adding to the beauty of the glorious light, and together causing the darkness to flee.

And I felt God say to me, “Wouldn’t it be pointless for these candles to compare themselves to each other and write themselves off as a result? They just each need to embrace their purpose to shine their own light, and in doing so, add to My glorious Kingdom light that pushes back the darkness.”

And I remembered times when I have fallen into the trap of imposter syndrome, thinking, “I can’t be a proper writer – I’m not as good as ** at writing Biblical epics, or ** at writing poetry, or ** at reigning over Social Media” etc. But that’s just like looking at other candles, whether fat, short, or beautifully decorated, and deciding that because my little candle is not like theirs, it’s inferior. So what if my candle (book) is skinnier than a big fat Biblical epic, or plain white next to a beautifully decorated, skilfully written novel? If I let that stop me shining my light, the world would be dimmer for it, especially if the people who read my little book didn’t read the others. And the point is, as Isaiah and Matthew both shared, we all have a light to shine: the light of Christ. We don’t need to compete; we just all need to shine our kingdom light in our own way.  For to disqualify ourselves from writing – or whatever you love doing for Jesus – would be to cease shining.  And the world is an increasingly dark place that needs us ALL to shine so everyone can see the Father for themselves. So let’s keep writing, and shining our light…

And now I can’t read Isaiah 60 or Matthew 5 without seeing that mental image of the room filled with candles.  To be honest, the puppet chorus is still there in the background – in fact they’re now singing “this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…”.  But as associations go, that’s not such a bad one. I’ll take it.