My friend’s homeland is in the... - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2024

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Psalm 119:105

My friend’s homeland is in the Middle East. A few decades ago, there was no electric lighting there and of course no flashlights, at least not in the small village where he spent his childhood. People had to make do with small oil lamps, as in biblical times. And these literally illuminated only the feet, that is, a step’s distance. The paths there were littered with humps, ruts and other obstacles. We can therefore imagine how necessary the lamp was when people had to go out late in the evening.
The connection to today’s verse is obvious. Without God’s Word, our psalm says we can’t move forward today either. We need light – good standards by which to guide our lives. For “spiritual darkness” is at least as dangerous as natural darkness. One can go astray, can even fall. We often use darkness as a metaphor to describe wrong thinking and wrong behaviour.

My friend told me that when he was a teenager, he often concocted mean pranks – even with oil lamps. For example, one day when he saw an old, bent woman walking home with her oil lamp, he sneaked up on her unnoticed and blew out her puny light. Of course, the poor woman panicked and screamed loudly. But the boy just laughed because his prank had succeeded.

Today he is ashamed of his behaviour, and not only because he has grown older and more mature: he has accepted Jesus Christ as his Saviour and Lord. This has changed him completely. “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).

Today’s reading: Ezekiel 41:1-26 · Psalms 142:1-8