Oh Great Light of the World

It's that time of the year again...time to put up the Christmas tree. And with the Christmas tree comes the lights.
In the case of my family it means A LOT of lights. And unfortunately I'm the only sibling who learned how to put lights on a tree correctly from my mom. This wasn't so bad when we were all living at home, but now it means that I have to put up three trees, mine, my mom's and my sister's.
Mom has a bad back, so she can't do the tree thing anymore, and my sister claims ignorance as to how to make the lights look right.
So, Mom's tree went up last Wednesday, but she bought a pre-lit last year, so it didn't take long (though I don't think there are really enough lights on it, I won't complain because I didn't actually have to put the lights on!)
Crystal's tree went up Saturday, well we started on it Saturday. This tree was massive, 9 ft tall. We're talking huge. I put over 6,000 lights on Saturday (it took from abou 3 in the afternoon until 10:30 at night to get this accomplished!) I finished up the last quarter of the tree last night, ending up with about 7,000 lights at least. The end result was totally worth the time spent because it looked good (in the opinion of my 2 year old niece anyway!)
The true test of the tree for me is how it looks from outside, and the tree shone brightly, so I counted it a success. The trick? Putting white lights on the inside to make the colored lights on the outer limbs stand out more. It just gives the whole tree a bright glow. So its whats on the inner branches that makes the tree.
Christians are the same way. We all want to shine brightly, but the way we shine is affected by what we have on the inside. If we are letting Christ completely fill our soul, we will have a light that all can see.
But if we hinder our relationship with Christ by allowing sin into our lives, our lights will begin to look dim. And if we continue to go on and on with unresolved sin, our light will be just a tiny flicker in the midst of the darkness.
I want to be a bright light. I want to have a relationship with Christ that keeps me shining for all the world to see! I'll leave you today with the words from one of my favorite Bebo Norman songs:

Oh great Light of the World,Fill up my soul, I'm half a man here, So come make me whole. Oh Great Light of the World, Come to impart, The light of Your grace, to fill up my heart.