Once again, in the midst of a trying time, the Lord reminded me of a lesson that He has had to revisit with me from time-to-time…
Psalms 119:105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
The issue for me is that I too often set my focus on the “light” at the expense of the “lamp.” I set my eyes on “where I’m going” and not on “where I am.” Keeping our eye on what’s on the road ahead is not wrong, but if that is all we focus on we are going to miss what is at our feet. In both cases we are talking about the Word of God and how it applies to each one of us… individually.
Both the light and the lamp are important elements in God’s plan for our life, but they focus on two different parts. Where we are going and where we are. If we spend our time focusing on just the promises of God (looking ahead) we are going to miss what He is revealing to us where we are today. He described it to me this way…
I am good at shining a million candle power light down the road ahead but I fail to use His lamp and continue to stumble over the rocks and roots at my feet. Like Paul kept his eye on the road ahead, using the Word to light his path, I am often looking far down the road…
Phil 3:13-14 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
But at the same time, Paul used the Word as a lamp unto his feet to deal with the here and now, what the Lord is focused on today. And that takes us to our key verse once again…
Rom 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
The light keeps the promise of God in sight, but the lamp illuminates where we are today, what God is working on in our life to prepare us to arrive at the place the light is shining on… the judgement Seat of Christ.
2 Cor 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
The judgement seat of Christ is the moment of truth where all that we have done here on earth will be judged as either wood, hay and stubble (to be burned up) or as silver and gold (to endure). We will be judged on what we have done in this life with the gift(s) the Lord has given us. And the key to that is the leading of the Holy Spirit, which He accomplishes with a lamp unto our feet, one day at time, slowly but certainly “conforming” us. It is the Word as our lamp that keeps us from stumbling, that shines on what God is doing in our life to prepare us for that day when we will arrive at the place the “light” has been shining on…
1 John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
That is the fulfillment of Romans 8:29. The question is, will I have spent more time focusing on the “lamp unto my feet” or the “light unto my path?” Yes, as the old hymn says, there is “a sweet by and by” that the Lord has promised us, and we all eagerly look forward to that day. But there is a “here and now” that the Holy Spirit is focused on, and He uses the Word of God as the “lamp” that we need to keep us moving ahead on the path before us and not stumbling over some obstruction in our way and tumble-down into the ditch.
Matthew Henry summed it up well…
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. The Word is “a lamp” to us, a “light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn” (2 Peter 1:19; Prov 6:23). The lamp is not the sun, but is our precious guide as to all that we should do, believe, hope, and love, until “the Sun of Righteousness” shall arise. We could not, with our present weakness, bear the dazzling effulgence of His glory; but the day is coming when His people shall be made like Him, and shall see Him as He is.