I’m having second thoughts about “environmentally friendly” light bulbs that produce little heat.  I live in Saskatchewan and that heat was not a wasteful byproduct.  On Christmas day this year the sun rose at 9:15 AM, set at 5:00 PM and the high for the day was -26° Celsius.  We are saving energy on our lighting by using CFL’s and LED’s, but now we use two or three electric heaters to supplement our furnace.  Where is the energy saving in that?

In summertime, when heat from incandescent bulbs might be a problem, we hardly turn the lights on anyway.  The sun rises at 5:00 AM and sets at 9:30 PM, and since we live on the flat open prairie we have almost full daylight an hour before the sun rises and an hour after it sets.

I am having second thoughts, too, about the kind of Christianity that produces a glaring bright light to illuminate the errors, faults, weakness and slip-ups of people, without generating any warmth.  Of course, we don’t want to choose a warm, fuzzy feeling over truth.  Truth matters, light matters, but is it really much good if there is no warmth to accompany it?

We have many bright sunny days in our prairie winters.  Light alone does not make anything grow.  But when spring comes to melt away the snow and thaw the soil, our barren landscape explodes into vibrant life.

So it is in our relationships with fellow Christians and with all our fellow human beings.  We need to be bearers of the light, but light without warmth creates a sterile landscape in the human heart.  Do our relationships seem fragile, prone to misunderstandings and hurt feelings?  Let’s try adding some warmth to those relationships.

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love (1 John 4:8).