Dec 132014
 

flashlightI love flashlights! I have lots of them. I have large 3 Dcell ones, tiny pocket-sized ones, solar-powered ones, hand-cranked generator ones,LED head-mounted ones, even one that generates a charge by shaking it! My latest is a very powerful compact model that can change brightness just by rotating my hand and remembers the mode it was in the last time it was used!

All the girls in my family have flashlights. Standard sized ones by the bed, Tiny pink ones in their purses. I love the technology. I love the light!

I love to be able to control what I see and when. With my flashlight, I can focus my attention on what is important to me. I can see what is at my feet. I can look at the path I want to take. I can exclude anything I choose.

My daughter, Kayla, and I spent lots of time one-on-one on our farm as she was growing up. Clearing fence rows, saddling up our horses to meet the sunrise on horseback.  In the evening, the barnyard lights would give us light to work by as we put away tools and tack for the day. Sometimes the moon would be full, bathing the pastures with light outside of the reach of the barn lights.

Some nights, with no moon, the night seemed pitch black. Needing to check a distant gate or fence, we would step away from the bright lights, turn our flashlights off, and walk hand in hand through wooded paths, edging through pastures, making our way across the farm. At first, we could see nothing, our eyes blinded by the artificial light of the barnyard. Moving further and further away, we started noticing our galaxy and others, uncounted millions of stars, bathing our world with light.

As our eyes adjusted, we could make out dark shapes of grazing horses. Soon we could differentiate heads and tails, then colors and smaller features. The further in time and distance we got from the barnyard, the more we could see. Still hand in hand, we confidently crossed the rest of the farm, seeing everything we needed with just the light God provided for us.

When we use our own, seemingly powerful, light sources, we choose what we see, we decide upon what to focus. When we use the light provided by the Creator God, the lights he made just for us on the fourth day of Creation, our horizons expand. We see as HE wants us to see. We see other paths, other beings, other directions.

When we walk in our own light, we selfishly go through our days, ignoring what God has in store for us. We miss the people right next to us, just outside the circle of our light. We ignore those needing a hand to hold, blinded to them. We make our own life directions, unaware of loftier goals, bigger obstacles, more heavenly missions, all seemingly unlit to our eyes blinded by our own light.

In your home, in your workplace, in your church today, turn off your light, grab the hand of someone next to you, and let your world and your direction be lit by the only One Who really knows the best path for you.

 shared at UVMC October 29,2014