Believe in the Light!

For you have snatched me from death, kept my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living. Psalm 56:14

Father Adam once gave an analogy of hiking in the dark compared to loss of faith. With a flashlight we get enough light to see a little of the trail but not the whole thing. I don’t know the rest. Made it was something about our faith growing dim and now we can’t see clearly.

Unfortunately I don’t remember the rest but it made me think of a time I was hiking it the dark with my son David. David and I were aware that we were starting our hike pretty late but we thought we’d have enough light to make it to the end of the loop. We reasoned, if not, there will be moonlight. We were wrong. It got dark very fast and there was no moonlight. It was a pitch black night. We weren’t carrying a flashlight. It was so dark, it was if we were blind. We had to feel our way. We could tell when we were getting off the trail by the brush on either side but there were obstacles to overcome. It was very scary.

Scary like trying to live our lives without God, completely in the dark. We talked about this experience a lot after we finally made it to safety. We talked about how foolish we were. We agreed that it would have been almost impossible if we hadn’t had each other. We were horrified at the thought of trying to find our way alone. That’s why God gave us one another to help each other find our way, to help us, when we feel lost, find our faith in God.

Another time I was hiking very rough terrain, up and down cliffs with deep ravines and a river below. This time I was with my husband, Wayne. We were heading back before dark but we got hopelessly lost and couldn’t find the way out. The harder we searched the more lost we became. Soon we could barely see. We decided that the only thing to do with the little bit of light we had left was to find a place to sit or lay down, to keep still and wait for dawn. We had to wait until the light came back and we could see once again. The wait was miserable, cold and dark. Like our faith in God when it starts to fail we need to lay low and ask God for help, to help us in our misery and to rest in Our Lord and pray until our faith returns.

The best scenario is to walk fully in the light of Christ! Jesus will keep us from getting lost!

Jesus said to them, “The light will be among you only a little while. Walk while you have the light, so that darkness may not overcome you. Whoever walks in the dark does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of the light.” John 12: 35-36