You can’t drive across the U.S. without seeing billboards advertising local caves and caverns. Even my home state of Florida has a tourist attraction at the Florida Caverns State Park in Marianna. Most of these caverns have spectacular, spacious chambers adorned with stalactites hanging from the ceiling and stalagmites rising from the floor. These caves also have a variety of animal life. The most well-known cave dweller is the bat. Other cave creatures include salamanders and spiders. Caves that have underground pools and rivers will have shrimp, crayfish, and small fish.
Some of these subterranean creatures are temporary cave residents called “trogloxenes”. Bats are trogloxenes. Bats sleep in caves during the day then go outside at night to search for food. Other cave dwellers are troglobites. A troglobite is an animal that spends its entire existence living in a cave. They never come out of the darkness and never experience the light. They live in a permanent “dark zone”. Then there are the troglophiles. A troglophile is able to live outside the darkness of a cave, but it prefers living in darkness.
As fascinating as caves can be, I don’t think any of us would want to live in a cave. We may be fascinated by dark, subterranean places, but most people prefer to live in the daylight and breathe the fresh air of open spaces. God created us that way. God created us to live outside in the light of the sun. The Bible uses the metaphor of light to describe a life of goodness and truth. Similarly, darkness is a metaphor for evil. The Bible says, “You are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth (Ephesians 5:8-9).”
God wants you to be photophile—a person who loves the light. Don’t be a troglophile who loves darkness, love the light and live in the light.
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