Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
*Psalm 119:105*N.T. Wright: , *Surprised by Hope*:
The point of the word "lamp" is not that it shows you the whole journey but that it shows you the next step. The psalmist does not ask for floodlights. He asks for just enough light to place one foot in front of the other without stumbling -- and that, precisely, is what God's word provides.
Charles Spurgeon: , *The Treasury of David*:
We often want to see a great deal when a little light would be better. The man who carries a lantern on a dark road sees only one step before him, but he takes that step and the light moves forward with him. So it is with Scripture: its guidance is not a map of the whole terrain but a companion for the present stride.
Athanasius of Alexandria: , *On the Incarnation* (c. 318 AD):
For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God comes into our realm -- not that he was far from us before, for no part of creation is left void of him, but he fills the universe in every part, being present with his Father. But he comes in condescension to show love for us and to appear among us. For seeing the rational race perishing and death reigning over them through corruption, and seeing also the law's ineffectiveness for correcting what threatened, he took to himself a body, no different from ours.
Oswald Chambers: , *My Utmost for His Highest*:
There is no such thing as a private life for a man or woman who is brought into fellowship with Jesus. God's discipline is not a punishment; it is an education. And the great point of the education is that we learn to see what we are -- not what we think we are, but what we really are -- and that discovery is rarely flattering. The lamp of the word does not hide, it reveals. And what it reveals must be dealt with, not explained away.
If the lamp only shows you the next stride, not the destination -- what are you looking past today while trying to see the whole journey?
Marcus Aurelius: , *Meditations*, Book V:
In the morning when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present: I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm? -- But this is more pleasant. -- Were you made then for pleasure, and not at all for action and exertion?
St. Clair, Michigan: -- Partly Cloudy, 39°F, Humidity 93%, Wind → 5 mph