October 10, 2023
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When our kids were younger, we did a lot of camping together. You say, "Well, how was it being like that with the kids?" Well, I get to say camping was intense. Intense! Well, okay, there is a pun in there somewhere.
Anyway, we'd get ready for bed at night, and it was in tents, and we would just tuck each one of those three kids into their sleeping bag, get it all zipped up, tied up, and then I would go and tie the flap of the tent, zip it closed, turn out the light, crawl in, get nicely situated in my sleeping bag all secure, turn over.
And then, there in the dark you would hear a little voice saying, "Daddy, I've got to go to potty." Great! So, reverse the process: unzip my sleeping bag, get unsecure, go over untie theirs, unzip their sleeping bag, untie the tent flap, etc. Oh, you know, stagger out into the night, of course guided just by our trusty little Coleman lantern. I'll tell you, it was a long, dark walk usually to that bathroom. We couldn't see our destination, but we could see enough.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "All the Light You Need."
Our word for today from the Word of God is in Psalm 119:105 - pretty familiar words. "Your Word," David says to the Lord, "is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." Man, I'll tell you, that makes me think back to my campground days and going out staggering toward that bathroom with a little child in the middle of the night with only my lantern. And you know what? It gave us insight into how God leads us; how He makes His will known. You might be wondering what His will is right now; something you've got to decide. You need to know it right now.
Well, He does it like my camping lantern did. We had just enough light for the next step. That's not how we want it. We want to see the whole path don't we? We want to see the destination. We want all our questions answered. We're trying to figure out the big plan, and God's trying to show us the next step. Now, why does He just give us light for that next step, for the next place we need to go on the path?
Well, first, you can only take one step anyway, so He gives us what we can handle. Secondly, if God shows you everything ahead, you would probably either run to it or run from it. Either way, you'd ruin it. Now, when you get to it, after all the steps toward it, it will seem natural. It will seem just right. But, see, you're not ready for that yet. You will be, but you can't skip the steps.
That's why Psalm 37 says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." Now, since our lives are really days, God tends to shed enough light for today's choices and today's challenges. God's will is actually the natural next step for someone who's been following Christ a day at a time. So, begin your day with His Word, which is the light for your path. And you say, "Lord, what obedient step do You want me to take today? What are Your orders for today?"
Now, you'll want more information than that, especially if you've got a major choice ahead of you. But you really don't need more than that. You only need today's assignment. Put all those obediences together. After seven of those, you've got a week of following Jesus and His will a day at a time. Thirty of them, you've got a month. Three hundred sixty-five of them, you've got a year. Pretty soon you've got a life that way.
God will take all those daily obediences. He will weave them together in His perfectly timed, perfectly constructed, master plan for you. You know what it is? It's called take a step, see a step. So, like a child walking with his Dad through that dark campground, you just step where the light falls next.
See, light for the next step is really all the light you need.