Thoughts for the Day

Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.
I have sworn an oath and confirmed it,
to observe your righteous ordinances.
I am severely afflicted;
give me life, O Lord, according to your word.
Accept my offerings of praise, O Lord,
and teach me your ordinances.
I hold my life in my hand continually,
but I do not forget your law.

(New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Today we expect light everywhere, and we forget what it must have been like in a society accustomed to going to bed when it became dark. I remember going home after an evening service at a country church in late September and stumbling out unable to see where I was going but hoping I was still on the path. Then there was a friend who gallantly took a girlfriend home, only to discover it was a mile down an unlit lane and he ended up in a ditch coming back.

The psalmist uses light to talk about God's word. We have looked at Psalm 119 before, discovering that it was written as an acrostic and uses just about every way of describing the written word of God in the Scriptures. Here the writer uses the idea of light to show us how we should walk in the way of God. I have also mentioned Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress before, but here too people walk the way of God in different ways. They stumble, dawdle, run, prowl, plod, stride, slog......etc. Each way they walk says something about them.

When we walk this life spiritually, we can like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, stride confidently off the path and into a bog, or dawdle along and take a rest and end up trapped somewhere dangerous. God's word in the Bible is meant to help us, to shine a light on the way we live our lives; the way we relate to others; and the way we worship God. How is your walk with God, at the moment - stumbling, confidently striding, or something in between?
Wednesday 8th July, follow up thoughts

Lord God,
help us to remember that Your
word as found in our Bibles
is a lamp to our feet,
and a light to our path,
to help us find our way through this world,
and to guide us into the way you would have us travel.
Amen.