Lights Walking the Lighted Path - Damon J. Gray
I can say, with confidence, that the current presidential election is the most disheartening of my lifetime. From where I sit, voters have no good choice. And the truth is so easily obfuscated by skilled candidate rhetoricians that many voters do not know what to believe.
One candidate says to the other, “You said/believe/support ‘A, B, and C.'”
The other candidate retorts, “No I did not, do not, and will not.”
(Fact checkers draw conflicting conclusions.)
“Oh yes you will!”
“Oh, no, no, no. I will not!”
Alean and I have agreed that when our ballots arrive in the mail, we are going to sit down together and pray for God to forgive us for the votes we are about to cast, believing that our options are truly that pathetic.
I was reading this morning in Psalm 43:1 (NASB)
Vindicate me, O God, and plead my case against an ungodly nation;
O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!
And then again in verse 3:
O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your dwelling places.
Our world is dark, stumbling arrogantly, yet aimlessly in the blackness. Truth has been traded in for perception, and conviction for ideology. Our troubled world is desperate, yet does not see its own desperation. More than at any point in my memory, I see that “men loved the darkness more than light” (John 3:19). I see how badly we need to humble ourselves and cry out with the sons of Korah, “O God … send out your light and your truth – let them lead us!”
Truth is truth, and truth matters. Jesus prayed that we would be sanctified in the truth (John 17:17). Our acceptance of, or denial of truth does not change that fact of truth. It is still truth. Shirley MacLaine stretching her arms out toward the Pacific Ocean and screaming, “I am God … I am God,” does not make her God, regardless of how deeply she, or her spiritual guru, David Manning, believe that she is God. Shirley is one of the Timothy women who is “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7).
Unlike the blind stumbler in the dark world, the follower after Christ has a lighted path upon which to travel, a path lighted by truth – “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). We walk that path as lights ourselves, the light of the world, a city set on a hilltop which cannot be hidden (Matthew 5:14).
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
That shines brighter and brighter until the full day.
The way of the wicked is like darkness;
They do not know over what they stumble.
– Proverbs 4:18-19 (NASB)
I will choose to walk the lighted path …
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path,”
– Psalm 119:105 (KJV)
… and to be a light while on that path …
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
– 2 Corinthians 4:6 (KJV)
As lights, let us walk that path humbly, and with civility. You are a light, and I am a light. Light just shines. It does not jump, scream, shout, argue … it just shines. And it is beautiful.
Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
– 2nd Corinthians 4:1-6 (NASB)
Victoriously in Christ!
– damon
