Psalm 18:28 “It is you who light my lamp; the Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.” This episode talks about how our Lord lights the way and if we are brave enough to take the next right step, even if we don't know the destination, we will live the amazing life God has planned for us. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
God Lights Up My Darkness
Psalm 18:28 “It is you who light my lamp; the Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.”
This is one of the verses that is great to copy down somewhere and look at it often. This is a great verse to refer to when you are in times of trouble or when you are confused as to what you should do. It is a short verse, so it is one that could easily memorized. Whenever we are struggling or feeling like we need some direction, Scripture is a great place to turn to. There are so many answers and so many reassurances that can be found in the Bible. The problem can sometimes be that we don’t know where to find those answers. This is why it is a good idea when we hear a verse that we think can provide us comfort, we write it down somewhere we can easily find it again when we need it.
This verse talks about how God lights our lamp. He lights up our darkness. You are not an exception to this. Are you currently go through a dark time in your life? Are you struggling with something and wondering if you will ever get through it? I have a friend that has been sick with Covid for over 2 months. She is finally feeling better during the day, but really can’t breathe well at night. When she goes to take a deep breathe she can’t and then she starts to get anxious that she won’t get enough air in her lungs. I have another friend who has had a sick member of her family since Thanksgiving. Every time one of them gets better another one gets sick. It seems like it is never ending. Do you know someone going through a similar darkness?
I hope this verse can bring them and you a lot of comfort. They are not in this darkness alone and neither are you. The Lord is with you. He is always with you. There is never a time when you are going through anything alone. God is with you each and every step of the way. He will never abandon you. Sometimes when we are in the darkness it is hard to see the light. I am sure when my friend is up late at night and she can’t breathe she is feeling alone in the darkness. I am sure my other friend is wondering why everyone in her house keeps getting sick and if it will ever end. Yes, it will end. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and that light is our Lord.
The Lord is our light. When you are in a period of darkness or when you are unsure what to do, turn to the Lord and He will light the way. Sometimes He will shine a bright light and provide some sort of solution that renews your hope and brightens your whole day. Other times He may just shine a flashlight. He may not illuminate the whole way forward. He might just give you the next right step and then He doesn’t illuminate the next step until you take that first one. This can be frustrating. We often times want to know the whole plan before we take any steps forward. Moving forward on our journey one step at a time takes a lot of faith. Where is the path leading us? What if we start down it and then we don’t like where we are going? We hesitate to take that first step because we are afraid.
The Lord has our best interests at heart. He would not lead us down the wrong path. He has amazing things planned for each one of us but we have to be brave enough to keep taking the next right step, even when we can’t see where our steps are leading. Even if we feel like we are walking in the dark. The Lord is our light. Do you know where all of our fear and questioning comes from? The enemy! He puts these questions in our heard because he is afraid of what would happen if we all followed the Lord’s light. Can you imagine if everyone on earth was following the Lord and living up to the potential that God gave them? Imagine what an amazing world this would be to live in if we all just did the next right thing.
The enemy has imagined that and it didn’t make him happy. He loves when we are at odds with one another. I am sure he and the rest of his evil spirits have been celebrating a lot over these last few years at least. The way we have been treating our fellow Americans over the last few years is crazy. I am sure it is not just the last few years, I know racism has been a problem since the creation of the country. However, these last few years everything seems to have spiked. The country is so divided on so many issues. It reminds me of Luke 12:52-53 which says, " From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Why are we so at odds with one another? Because the enemy wants us to be. He is a liar and a trouble maker. He whispers things in our ears all the time. Our loved one can say something to us that is not a big deal and yet we can blow it up into a huge thing all because the enemy is telling us we shouldn’t let them get away with saying that, or he keeps reminding us of it over and over again. He may point out annoying things about those around us just to keep us arguing. He points out the differences between us and everyone else, instead of showing us how we are alike. The enemy is awful and we can’t let him into our minds. It says in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 “Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.”
This verse is showing us how to live in the light that God is providing us. It is reminding us that we are not really fighting ourselves, we are fighting the enemy and all of his evil spirits. The verse is also reassuring though because it says that our powers are also not merely human, but they have the power to destroy strongholds. Does the enemy have any strongholds on you? Is there something he has been telling you for a long time that you keep believing. Or maybe it is an illness or an addiction and the enemy keeps feeding you all kinds of lies about how it is never going to go away. He may be telling you God can’t take it from you or God won’t take it from you. The enemy may be telling you that you have always been like this so you will always be like this. Don’t believe him, the enemy is a liar.
This verse tells us how to defeat the enemy. It says, “we take every thought captive to obey Christ.” Take your thoughts captive. Right now the enemy has hijacked a lot of our thoughts and is feeding us misinformation. He is taking some kernel of truth and twisting it to fit his purpose of dividing all of us and turning us against each other and convincing us that the Lord doesn’t love us. We need to stop listening to him, take captive our thoughts and remember that my God lights up my darkness. It is the Lord that lights my lamp. God will light your path and show you which way to go. He will help you make your decisions if you ask Him. This is where a lot of us go wrong. We forget to stop and ask the Lord what He thinks we should do. I am not a betting person, but if I was I would bet you that if you stopped and asked the Lord what you should do before you made any big decisions, you would see Him in your life so much more. He is right there, waiting for an invitation to lead you to the life you have always been waiting for. Are you ready to invite Him in? Are you ready to trust Him, even if you can only see the next right step and you don’t know the final destination? Are you ready to finally step into the light?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to follow you, wherever you are leading us. Help us to invite you into our decisions Lord. Actually Lord, let’s invite you in right now. Lord, we invite you into our decisions and we ask you to guide us in all future decisions we need to make. Let us know what you want us to do and then give us the strength to do what is right even if it is hard and even if that is not what we want to do. Lord, light our way and shine a light so brightly that we can’t do anything else except follow it. You are so wonderful and you always save us even when we do the wrong thing. We are so grateful for all the times you shined a light through the darkness. We wouldn’t have gotten through it without that light. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day!