Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
Psalms 119:105 (KJV)
Isn’t this a great scripture? It reveals so much about how God shows us His will for our lives and does it in just a few words. When you’re walking along a path at night in an unlit area, what do you use for illumination? You don’t set up street lamps and light the entire area, instead you carry a small lantern or flashlight that illuminates your next step and a bit of the path ahead. Similarly, God doesn’t usually use His word to reveal all our surroundings, or even what He has for us around the next bend. Instead, He uses it to illuminate our next step and the path just ahead. We know our ultimate destination, indeed, we can see it shining on the hill above us, but between here and there is a path through the darkness that is this world that we must traverse.
So, why doesn’t God just illuminate the entire path for us? Why just enough to keep us from stumbling or losing the path entirely? I believe that it’s because He knows our limits better than we do. Think back (if you’re old enough!) to when you were in high school or middle school; if you could have known then everything that God had planned for you for the rest of your life, what would you have done? I don’t know about you, but I think I would have rolled up into a fetal position and started sucking my thumb! Even with God, life is scary enough on a day to day basis! Repeatedly in the scripture God tells us to take life one day at a time, this verse is just another way of saying it. His Word illuminates our feet so we don’t stumble and lights the path so that we can find our way. It’s not intended to be a floodlight that banishes all questions from our lives, the Word is a flashlight showing us where to place our next step.
I agree with you on the word and HIS words directing our path. It is amazing, but had I known what I know now? I would have stayed in bed, fetal position or not, with my head under the covers never to come out again.
GOD KNOWS!!
The part where you ask what we would have done if we knew what would happen to us later in life is priceless. Boy..are you right on about that!
Hey Jim. You’re absolutely right. God often only reveals the step or two
just ahead of us. It’s an exercise in faith. What a great post, thanks
for sharing!
Hello, Jim,
Indeed, it is just one more way of saying, as the old hymn goes, “one day at a time, sweet Jesus.” God said that the righteous is not to live by sight but by faith. It is our flesh that makes us fear the unknown but the LORD says we are to depend on him fully, one hundred percent. He IS faithful. It only takes putting one foot ahead of the other one step at a time to find out.
Great post. Keep ’em coming, Brother.
God bless you,
Soldado De Oracion
The problem Christians have isn’t knowing the Bible is the Light by which we learn the will of God so that we can become doers of the word. The problem is Christians do not know the Bible. That becomes painfully evident when you bring up doctrine. Opinions flourish and religious traditions are heatedly defended, but “Thus saith the Lord” is sadly missing from the lips of modern Christians and bloggers.
Lip service to the Lord and His Book have always been problems in every era. We are falling all over ourselves trying to appear educated, devout, spiritual, compassionate, and broad minded that real Christian warriors who stand up for God’s doctrine are out of vogue.
Jesus Christ rebuked His people for believing in church tradition because it made His word of none effect. Jeremiah stood on the temple steps and called on those entering and leaving to repent. John the Baptist and Elijah lashed out with some of the most rude and offensive and uncalled for (by todays unbiblical standards of behavior)insults you can imagine. They were all despised by the majority of God’s people and by the Bible preachers who did not know and believe the Bible so it could be a lamp unto their feet and a light unto their path. But those unpopular men were models of Godly Christian behavior. They weren’t model Christians because they had lousy personalities (by todays unbiblical standards), they were good examples because they were not only experts on the Bible, they lived the Bible and therefore could not but try to help apostates repent and learn and do the Bible.
We don’t need to know the Bible is a lamp. We need to know the Bible.
Len Smith
TheSwordbearer.org