Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path

Today’s reading is from Psalm 119:100 -110.

“I understand more than the aged, for I keep Your precepts. I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep Your word. I do not turn aside from Your rules, for You have taught me. How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep Your righteous rules. I am severely afflicted; give me life, O Lord, according to Your word! Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O Lord, and teach me Your rules. I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget Your law. The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from Your precepts.” (ESV)

This very small portion of scripture contains so much depth of meaning for our lives as children of God, but I am going to touch only on the idea of God’s Word being a lamp for our feet and a light on our path. As Christians we all use the Bible as our reference for containing the Word of God.

What is the difference between light and a lamp? My very limited understanding sees light as removing darkness, and a lamp as illuminating within darkness. The dictionary defines light as – the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible; and a lamp is defined as a device for giving light.

Light was, according to the story of creation in the book of Genesis, the first thing that God created. Earth has been bathed with light from the sun ever since; it is our most important source of energy. Sunlight warms us, causes weather patterns, allows plants to manufacture oxygen and carbon dioxide, (both essential for life itself) and it allows us to find our way around in the daytime! Humans need sunlight for vitamin D. Light is the main source of energy for all living organisms.

From a more scientific angle, fusion occurs in the sun’s innermost core, when two atoms merge, releasing energy and light in the process. So, photons of light are first created in the center of the sun. Then the photons travel by zigzagging their way from atom to atom until they reach the surface resulting in illumination. I do not know enough about science to expand on this concept, but suffice it to say, light is a miracle that starts as something miniscule and finishes as something profoundly enormous and useful, without which, life would be impossible to live.

Medical science tells us that among other things, without a reliable sunlight trigger, your body will just keep making melatonin (the sleepy hormone) and it might start to feel tired all the time. Sunlight is a trigger for your body to produce serotonin (the happy hormone). Therefore, light helps to regulate your mood.

How is the idea of darkness defined? Darkness is what you have when there are no, or very few, photons and thus you can’t see anything. When you light a lamp, the photons from the lamp bounce all over the room and the darkness “disappears”, so to speak. Absence of light doesn’t exist when there is presence of light. Darkness is just the absence of light. Darkness has no independent existence. When there is no light only then does darkness exist. So, darkness cannot consume light, instead light consumes darkness!

Enough of the information. Let me try to turn this information into something spiritually valuable. God’s word is described by Paul as a mystery and that it only becomes meaningful to us in the presence of the Holy Spirit. I Corinthians 2: 10-11 says – “These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”

Light begins at the very core of the sun. Our understanding of God’s Word begins in the very depths of God Himself. He then reveals His Word and its truth as we surrender to His Holy Spirit in our reading of the Word contained in the Bible. As we read the Word of God, He reveals its mysteries to us in small portions, or as photons. These photons of revelation then bounce around in our minds, our souls and our spirits, until they become illumination and reveal a whole world of truth to us. It starts as something miniscule in our hearts and ends by being an illumination that brings meaning to life in inexpressible and incomprehensible ways.

Light was the first thing to be created – it was the very beginning of all things created – air, plants, animals, etc. could not be created without light – everything about life on earth is dependent upon light. Therefore, according to the psalmist, everything about understanding our purpose and our existence is contained in the Word of God. Light is the source of all energy – God’s Word is the source of our spiritual energy. Without it, we walk in the foolishness of our own wisdom. Light gives us sight, it gives us daytime, it helps us to find our way around – just so with the Word of God – it brings meaning to so many things we often allow to confuse us – but God’s Word gives us direction and something solid upon which to base our worldviews.

Without light our bodies simply want to sleep – without the Word of God, our spiritual lives go to sleep or wander off in the darkness, on their own paths. I am sure we can all relate to how very disorientating darkness can be – we will make our way to wherever we think something is but find that we are actually way off course. It is only when light comes that we see how far off course we really are. This is what the Word of God does for us. It keeps us on the right course. Our health, as the body of Christ, depends on our switching on the light of the Word of God. We should be soaking ourselves in the Word of God and not in the words of men. As the psalmist says – “I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.” We should be reading the Word of God ourselves and not depending only on others to reveal its truths to us – God, the Holy Spirit, reveals His Truth to us personally. His Word is our Light – the regulator of our mood. His Word gives us security, it gives us equilibrium, it gives us stability, it gives us hope in the darkness, it gives us a solid foundation upon which to build our lives.

Darkness cannot exist in the presence of light. Darkness does not exist in the presence of light. Therefore, if God’s Word is light, then darkness can never cast shadows over our lives. Darkness has to flee, or disappear, or cease to exist altogether. So, if there is a shadow of sin over our lives, according to God’s Word, it has not been surrendered to His light. We are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God – every day. No sin can be compared as greater than another. Sin keeps us on our knees in the presence of God and humble in the presence of each other. We all, daily, have to come into the presence of God’s light, His Word, in order to nullify the sin which is at our core – sin also starts as a miniscule proton and is capable of growing into something enormous and frightening if not brought into the light of God’s Word.

In closing, lamps, in the times when the Word of God was written, were containers of oil with a wick which was lit by fire. Today’s equivalent would be the humble candle. When we light a candle in the dark, it really only gives us enough light to take one more step. As we take that step, so it casts enough light for the next step. If we do not take the step, we will be pretty much stuck in one spot with only enough light to see clearly for that one step and only dimly beyond it. I believe that as we read God’s Word it will give us enough light for one step forward in our walk with Him. We need to live that step for the next step to be revealed. If we do not live the Word of God, then we get stuck with only dim illumination around us. If we do live the Word of God, more and more, so our paths become illumined by the light of God’s Word, rather than just a lamp for our feet. The lamp gives light for our feet to, step by step, find the light on our path. God’s truths are revealed to us in smaller photons (the lamp to our feet), until they attach themselves to the atoms of energy that bring illumination to our world (the light to our path).