LIGHT FOR THE WAY 

I was walking past a travel agent’s office recently when a sign in the window caught my attention. It read “Without a travel agent, you are on your own.” Just as unwise, I thought, would it be to continue on our way in life without someone to help us put a travel plan together. And to present us with a travel booklet to keep us on track and informed along the way. One of  Israel’s song writers possessed a travel guide like that. In fact, he wrote some of it himself. One of his contributions, Psalm 119, includes these lines … “Oh Lord, how I love your law … for your commands are my constant guide … Your commandments give me understanding … Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.”[1] The same travel guide is available to us today for our journey through life.

The psalmist drew his word picture from the kind of lamp familiar to him at the time. This was a small, open, fairly shallow, pottery bowl containing oil. A pinched lip in the rim of the bowl held the wick. The lamp could be held in the hand when walking at night. A light was essential then. For many were the dangers hidden by the darkness—poisonous snakes, deep pits for trapping larger animals, covered by a thin layer of rushes and brush through which the unwary traveller could also fall. Snares set on the ground to trap smaller animals could snap shut on the traveller’s feet if not seen in time. Everyone travelling through the night needed ‘a lamp for his feet and a light for his path.’

Margaret and I served for many years with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Papua New Guinea, translating the Scriptures for the Ewage speaking people of the Diocese of Popondota in Oro Province. Many times we found ourselves walking at night along the trails between villages. To give us light along the way we each carried a small hurricane lamp. The light from the lamp created a circle of light around our feet and lit up the path just ahead of us and behind us, and to the edge of the jungle growth on either side. We felt safe as we walked along one behind the other, each of us encircled by the light from our lamps.

Find yourself in a dark place just now? Seem to have lost your sense of direction? Not sure of what to do next? Pick up your Bible once again. Let the Scriptures be "a lamp for your feet and a light for your path."