Lamp Unto My Feet

While washing the dust off my old lamps, I couldn’t help thinking about how we used to depend on the light from them.

Our big stone house was so dark when night fell. Somehow the stairway lamp was often the last to be lit. Everyone was busy elsewhere and no one remembered to light that very important lamp. As a little girl, I was very anxious when sent on an upstairs errand in the dark. Until a lamp on the upper balcony was lit, a bookcase could become a bear, a chair with a coat draped over it was some kind of witch. Even the fascinating world globe took on a sinister appearance like a bald-headed monster.

A kerosene lamp doesn’t really shed much light. But it’s enough to cut the darkness. By the light of a lamp we could read, Mamma and her helpers could cook supper, knitters could pick up their work, and those assigned to shelling corn could start rattling dry kernels into an aluminum pan. It was as if the darkness ate life away, but when a lamp was lit, life could begin again.

There were tasks for keeping the lamps bright. Someone had to wash the glass globes when they got smoky. Someone had to trim the wicks so the flames would be nice and even instead of jagged like a rocky mountain. Sometimes someone had to replace a wick that was burned too close. The new heavy fiber wick had to be skillfully threaded through the lamp’s workings so as to reach the kerosene in the reservoir. A badly kept lamp made reading very hard and made one’s navigation of the furniture almost treacherous.

The era of electricity started for us when I was fifteen. Most people in their eighties and nineties can tell you when their family “got lights.” Our grandson, Charles Reeves, is an electrician. He enjoys making our lights brighter and we, of course, delight in it too. But in my mind, when I read the verse about God’s Word being a light “unto my path” it’s those old kerosene lamps I picture.

If we don’t remember to open His Word and let His Light show us the way, we will stumble and fall. Also, I think about our lives being the only Bible many people see. Our fuel needs to be renewed day by day. Our globes need to be clean and clear for His Light to shine through. Our wicks need trimming and even, sometimes, replacing.

Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Psalm 119:105 is a Bible verse familiar even to little children. But there is another facet to the subject of lamps. Not only is His Word a lamp unto my feet, but He is our lamp! II Samuel 22:29 says: For thou art my lamp, O Lord: and the Lord will lighten my darkness. If God, our faithful God, is my lamp, why should I fear? His light will not need to be trimmed or chimneys scrubbed. His light will be true and bright–always, even after nightfall.

May your light shine brightly this year as He lights your path!