Thanks for joining me for today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Tim Gustafson wrote today's reading, and he titled it, Window to the Wonderful.

Photographer Ron Murray likes cold weather. Cold means clear skies, he explains, and that can open a window to the wonderful.

Ron provides Alaskan photography tours dedicated to tracking Earth's most spectacular

light show, Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights.

Murray speaks of the experience as very spiritual.

If you've ever seen this iridescent display

dance across the heavens, you'll understand why. But the lights aren't only a northern phenomenon.

Aurora Australis, nearly identical to Borealis, occurs simultaneously in the South, the same

kind of lights. In the disciple John's telling of the

Christmas story, he skips the stable and the shepherds and goes directly to the one who brought light

to everyone. When John later writes of a heavenly city in Revelation 21, he describes the source of its light.

This city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the lamb is

its light. This light source is Jesus, the same source referenced in John 1, and for those who inhabit this future

dwelling, there will be no night there, no need for lamps or sun, for the Lord God will shine on them.

As our lives reflect this light of the world, the one who created Aurora Borealis and Australis, we open a window

to the truly wonderful. The scripture reading for today's devotional is from Revelation

21, verse 23 through chapter 22 verse 5. The city does not need the

sun or the moon to shine on it. For the glory of God gives it light and the lamb is its lamp.

The nations will walk by its light and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor

into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and

honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone

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