Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 119 verse 105:
"Your word is a lantern to my feet
and a light upon my path."
Somewhere or other commenting on this verse, Augustine said we need both light on the path to show the way ahead and also a lamp in our hand to help us to take the next step.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
The light ahead is a kind of promise -- an assurance that someone has been here before, that they planned and carved out the path and set its stone steps in expectation of another walking them. This is the God of all time at work in the past to guide us in our future. This is the Light of very light which established his light for us literally light years before we would ever see it.
But then there is the lamp in our hand, the light which goes with us and is in us. This is the light which allows us to see not much in the way of distance but enough to simply take the next step, which it turns out is all we really need to make it all the way down the path.
There is light in the long distance, the promise of light past, present, and future and the assurance that as Julian said, "All things shall be well and all manner of things shall be well." Then there is light at which we carry, the light which illuminates the near and now.
And in between the two lights there is darkness which can only be driven back back by going ahead and taking the next step . . .
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