Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

The devotional for today titled A Thousand Dots of Light was written by Kenneth Peterson.

The Dismol's Canyon in northwestern Alabama attracts a number of tourists each year,

many in May and June, when the gnat larva hatch and become glowworms.

At night, these glowworms cast a brilliant blue luminescence,

and thousands of them together create a breathtaking light. In a way, the Apostle Paul writes about

believers in Christ as glowworms. He explains in Ephesians 5 that you were once darkness, but now

you are light in the Lord. But sometimes we wonder how this little light of mine can make a difference.

Paul suggests it isn't just a solo act. In Colossians chapter 1, he calls us children of light

and explains that we share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. Being light in the world is a

collective effort, the work of the body of Christ, the work of the church. Paul reinforces this with the

picture of us glowworms worshipping together, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit.

When we get discouraged, thinking our life testimony is just one little dot in a midnight

culture of pitch black, we might take assurance from the Bible. We're not alone. Together,

as God guides us, we make a difference and glow a brilliant light.

It seems that a whole congregation of glowworms might attract a whole lot of interest.

Today's Our Daily Brad Devotional scripture reading is from Ephesians chapter 5, verses 8 through 20.

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.

For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness,

and truth, and find out what pleases the Lord, have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds

of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful, even to mention what the disobedient do in

secret, but everything exposed by the light

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