“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5: 14-16). Some of us may feel that if we are not perched up on a candlestick, but are instead trapped under a bushel, then there is really no point in trying to let our light shine. Some of us may feel like we are broken and impure vessels, unworthy and unfit to carry the good tidings of the gospel of Jesus Christ or share our testimony with others. We may feel that we have wandered too far down forbidden paths for us to bear any good fruits or bless the lives of others. For any who may truly believe such lies of the adversary, let us consider the example of Aminadab, as told in Helaman 5. From about 40 to 30 BC, many of the people of Nephi and of the Church of God had dissented from their righteous brethren and either fought them openly or enlisted and incited the armies of the Lamanites to destroy and subjugate believers. One such group of Dissenters and lamanites captured the brothers Nephi and Lehi who had gone among them to bring to them the good tidings of the gospel of repentance. They threw these missionaries in prison and starved them over the course of many days and took it in their hearts to kill them. At first a fire appeared in the prison, encircling Nephi and Lehi so that the Lamanites and Nephite Dissenters could not touch them. After the fire there came a fierce shaking of the prison, so that it seemed as if the walls would tumble to the earth. Then the unbelievers were plunged in impenetrable darkness and suffocating fear. They heard three times a voice from above the darkness calling on them to repent, but they were so filled with fear and confusion that they could not move and did not know what to do. But then, Aminadab, a man who had fought against the church of God and chosen a life of wickedness and malice and had tried to kill the servants of God, nevertheless he remembered the truths that he had been taught, and the fire of the testimony that burned within him still, and he looked through the darkness and saw the light. Even though he had been placed under a bushel in complete darkness, Aminadab chose to let his light shine anyway. He called out for the rest of his would-be prophet-slayers to look to Nephi and Lehi and see through the darkness to the light. “And it came to pass that the Lamanites said unto him: What shall we do, that this cloud of darkness may be removed from overshadowing us? And Aminadab said unto them: You must repent, and cry unto the voice, even until ye shall have faith in Christ, who was taught unto you by Alma, and Amulek, and Zeezrom; and when ye shall do this, the cloud of darkness shall be removed from overshadowing you. And it came to pass that they all did begin to cry unto the voice of him who had shaken the earth; yea, they did cry even until the cloud of darkness was dispersed. And it came to pass that when they cast their eyes about, and saw that the cloud of darkness was dispersed from overshadowing them, behold, they saw that they were encircled about, yea every soul, by a pillar of fire.” The thing I love about this story is that when the cloud of darkness was dispersed, it wasn’t just Nephi and Lehi, the righteous and successful missionaries, who were encircled by pillars of fire. Every soul. All of those Dissenters and non-believers who had waged unjust wars and taken into their hearts to murder the servants of God were ringed about with Heavenly Flames. Even in the very darkest of prisons, the light of Christ which was in them shined all the same. We may through our own foolish choices or through the careless actions of others have the light of Christ that is in us shrouded in clouds of darkness. But that does not mean that the light is gone. President Brigham Young once said ““Let the fire of the covenant which you made in the House of the Lord, burn in your hearts, like flame unquenchable.” We all have a flame unquenchable in our hearts. No matter what we have done or for how long we’ve disassociated ourselves from the fellowship of our Savior or how much distance we believe we’ve put between us and our Heavenly Father or how many clouds of darkness we’ve heaped upon our souls, we will not be able to fully quench the fire of the Covenant and the Light of Christ that is within us. Before this experience, neither Aminadab nor any of his 300 brethren would have been considered a good candidate for missionary service by any rational person, and they would have all agreed. But these three hundred men were some of the most successful missionaries of all time. They may have placed themselves under a bushel and heaped darkness upon them, but when they repented and chose to let their light shine, they shone so brightly that they had convinced almost all of the Lamanites to repent and join the fold of God. Aminadab was able to share his testimony in the middle of an earthquake surrounded by impenetrable darkness in a prison to a bunch of bloodthirsty murderers. Whatever we’ve done, we do not need to wait for the perfect conditions before we can begin sharing the gospel. If we find ourselves still under a bushel, we can choose to let our light shine even there. You never know. There might just be a bunch of other frightened candles huddling under the same bushel, who just need to be told that the darkness isn’t real and that they already have an unquenchable flame burning within them. I know that the Light of Christ is inside each of us, no matter who we are or what we’ve done, whether we’re under a bushel or on a candlestick, and it is never too late or too early to let our light shine.
