The Old Flashlight

There are times in our life when the things we need the most are often those things we’ve taken for granted, they are frequently things we see having little value, until we actually need them. We often don’t know how much we need something until we actually need it.  

Picture yourself enjoying a quiet evening at home, having a glass of wine with old friends, telling stories of days gone by. Suddenly you see lightning outside the window followed by a loud crack of thunder, then another, and first the lights just flicker before going out altogether. You find yourself in complete darkness and about now the flashlight app on your cell phone would come in handy, but you aren’t sure where you last laid the phone. So, you feel your way to the kitchen to grab the candles from that catch-all drawer that everyone has, but now you need to find matches. After some desperate searching, and a few choice words mumbled under your breath, you finally find them in that same drawer under the carry-out menu from the pizza parlor down the street. All of a sudden, those free matches that you got at your nephew’s wedding seem pretty valuable. Sound familiar?

Maybe you are camping and your daughter has to go the bath house in the middle of the night. You’ve made that same trip every night you’ve been at the campground, so you don’t need a flashlight to illuminate the path. But on this night, for some reason, you take the flashlight anyway. About halfway into your trip to the bath house you hear a noise rustling through the leaves in front of you. You flip on the light just in time to see a snake slithering across the path. At that moment, your old cracked flashlight held together with duct tape is worth a great deal. Have you ever found yourself on a dark path, even a familiar one, thankful for light, any light?

Many of us wander through life never really tapping into the light that can brighten our path and illuminate the darkness for us. We stumble and fall, we wander off the path, and we trip over objects in front of us, all because we try and walk through life’s journey without God’s light guiding our steps, even those that Light Source is readily available to us at all times.

God spoke light into existence from the very beginning – “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness” (Genesis 1:3-4). Throughout the pages of Scripture, there are numerous references to God as light unto our path. Here are three of those verses…

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path” (Psalm 119:105).

“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

In John 8:12, Jesus said this about Himself – “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”

So, today, I encourage you to seek God and His light – the light of the Holy Spirit – which is the light that will help point out sin in your life, the light that helps you walk in truth, and the light that will also help you navigate those dark nights when you find yourself walking on an unfamiliar (or even familiar) path. Ask God to give you faith to walk in His light and also for His fresh batteries for your dim flashlight.