21st Century Parable
One day a man woke up and said to God “I want to do what you want me to do – show me what path to take and I will do it.” There was a knock at the door and the man ran downstairs eager to see what God’s response would be. He opened the door to find a parcel from Amazon. Gingerly, he picked it up, all the while thinking ‘Whatever is in this parcel is God’s plan for me!’ The end.
Only kidding. He sat down and opened the parcel and inside was a lantern. In the lantern there was space for one small tealight – it wasn’t even battery powered! Unperturbed, the man asked God what the meaning of all this was. “You wanted me to show you the path, I have given you something to light the way, now off you go” replied God. “Hang on!” said the man (Let’s call him Duncan) “It’s nighttime and I live in the middle of nowhere – not a street light in sight”. “Well that’s why I got you a lantern – don’t worry about the light going out I will sustain it myself.”
Duncan thought about this for a few minutes and then decided to go for it! Why not? He had God’s promise of a light to guide him! Duncan opened the door and stepped out into the pitch black, at which point his lantern began to glow. But there seemed to be something wrong with it – it’s light did not cast very far around Duncan at all – in fact he could only see a few steps ahead at a time. “Are you sure God?” Duncan asked “You’re on the right path Dunc just keeping walking forwards.”
Well it was slow going for Duncan, and as he got further and further along the path he began to become discouraged. “Stupid lantern” he thought to himself. If only I could see my destination, if only I could see that I was getting closer and closer to it. But this lantern doesn’t shine far enough – what were you thinking God?” Duncan heard a noise in front of him and raised the lantern to try and see what was there, but it was no use. Then a voice came from the darkness “What you got there boy? A lantern? Are you stupid or something? Wandering around in the darkness with a tiny little lantern. No no no. What you want is a torch. We got LED’s and everything these days.” “What’s an LED?” Duncan puzzled. “It means you can see where you are going boy, it’s bright alright – you’ll be moving along faster than you are with that thing. It just so happens I have a torch on me, I tell you what I’ll do you a trade. I’m somewhat familar with this darkness, I don’t have much use for light so I’ll swap you this torch for your lantern.” Duncan didn’t hesitate as he was fed up with the lantern and this new voice was offering him a deal too good to be true. Duncan took the torch and shone it into the darkness – it was brilliant! There in the distance Duncan could see some buildings at the end of the path. ‘That must be my destination’ he thought and set off at a faster pace. Unfortunately Duncan tripped over and fell in a deep hole.
Psalm 119:105: ‘Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.’
God promises to light our path highlighting any obstacles that come up, on the other hand, we often look to the future fantasising about what the final outcome of the paths we are on might be.
What does it mean for God’s word to be a lamp to your feet today? Where are your eyes focused? On the journey or what you think is the destination?
