Dimming your light so others around you will be secure is a direct contradiction to the word of God.

The bible says:

Arise and shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.

You are the light of the world, a city set upon a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and sets it under a basket, instead it is put on a lampstand so it can give light to all.

Let your light so shine, that men may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven.

There is a purpose for the light God has placed in you, and it is to make His glory known. How can you be who your Father has made you to be if you have to dim what He said to shine, if you have to hide what he says to place on a lampstand?

Your light is not to make you proud or arrogant. Infact the true light of God humbles and liberates you, it frees you from attachment to labels and status. You may have them but you do not define yourself through them. It is when you obtain your light from the world that you become proud, egotistical, seek excessive external validation and even go any length to cut other people down to make you feel like your light shines the brightest.

The light of God is the glory of God, it radiates and fills you with peace, joy and strength. It empowers you and makes you seek ways to bring people to realize the light of God they carry too. You become the light by which people can see their path to God’s light in them.

Dimming your light so others around you will be secure is a direct contradiction to the word of God.

– Elizabeth A. Ibiloye

Any thing, place, habit, people, patterns that can only exist when your light is hidden is not in alignment with God’s plan for you. Any thing, place, habit, people, patterns trying to cut or dim your light is in direct opposition to God’s desires for you.

In order to allow our light shine fearlessly, we must first of all get a strong rooting in God and be very clear about our identity as children of God, we must have a deep meaning of who we are. It takes revelation and constant renewal of your mind to have a thorough and clear understanding of what it means to be created in God’s image.

We must also understand that people are walking bags of insecurities and the people who are vulnerable enough to know the human nature is flawed are the ones who receive their light and confidence from God. They embrace them and improve on them through the help of God.

However, a lot of people are committed to hiding their insecurities and worse, project their feelings of inadequacy on you. This kind of people cannot stand a person’s rising and shining. These people are the most dangerous set of people, because they will do their best to take out that light covertly or overtly. Nothing is above or beneath them when it comes to cutting you down.

When we understand that nothing anyone does or says should be taken personally in terms of defining ourselves, we are able to live, move and have our being in God freely. We are able to disengage from absorbing or internalizing what they say about us. We are not moved because we understand that is not who we are.

An insecure person’s opinion of you is simply a reflection of their own insecurities. Understand this truth and set yourself free from the need to dim or shrink yourself to make anybody feel better.

At the end of the day, we have one mission; to be who God has called us to be and to shed light into darkness that others may see who God has made them to be too. So shining God’s light in us is not something we should choose to do or not. It is a command that we should follow.

When you shine God’s light, you are not threatened or vindictive and so you give others the confidence to shine too.

So please keep shining, I am rooting for you!