I’ve always found this verse from David’s longest psalm an inspiration. Somehow he captured a truth about life I can take into the new year.
In 2016 it is tempting to import our twenty-first century concept of lighting into David’s profound poem. When we use the word ‘lamp’ we usually have something electrical in mind. Spotlights pick out a performer, LEDs light up a stage, a torch gets me to my garden shed without colliding with the rockery and headlights will tell me there’s a car coming round the corner.
But for David there were many, many fewer lumens. The brightest light he could carry along a path would be no brighter than one of our candles. Most likely it was made by an oil-burning wick suspended in some contraption to prevent it from blowing out. So the area it would illuminate in the pitch blackness of a middle eastern night would have been tiny. No more than a step or two.
So here’s the point. God’s word is there to guide and illuminate our path in 2016; but it’s not a spotlight to point the way or a floodlight to blast clarity over every situation we’re going to face. It’s a light for the next step or two. And having taken one step, it gives illumination for the step that follows and so on. It’s inductive direction. It lets God guide us through the unpredictable and unforseen.
May you know this for yourself in 2016.
