Heart Tracks - Artificial Light

    Some years ago I was visiting friends who lived in a much more rural setting than I do.  One night, the family and I went out for a walk in the area around their home.  I remember looking up and being blown away by the beauty of the brightly shining stars.  The light coming from them was so bright that it illuminated not only us, but the path we were on.  It was a light that made visible so many things that had we been walking under streetlights, or carrying flashlights, we would never have noticed.  The seeming brightness of that artificial light would have kept them hidden from us.  It made me think of how in both the natural and spiritual realm, artificial, or man-centered light can, despite its seeming brightness, keep hidden from us so much that the Father would have us see.

    Years ago, I read a book by the late Jamie Buckingham detailing a semi-annual trip he would make with selected friends that retraced the path of the Israelites during their journey outlined in the book of Exodus.  One part I remember so well was the groups following a steep pathway in a starlit night.  A few of them, depending only on the light of the stars, got further and further ahead of the rest, who were depending on their flashlights to guide them.  Budkingham said that his group was able to not only clearly see the path they were on, but all the wonders that were right there in front of them.  In their wonder, they looked downward on the path and saw the rest of the group, stumbling along at almost a crawl, trying to follow the very limited light of the flashlights.  This story, and my experience with my country friends makes me wonder; why do we put such dependence spiritually, on artificial, man-made light?  Why do we so desperately seek the light from human "stars" when all the while, He, who in Revelation 22 called Himself "the bright morning star," offers His light?  Why are we so willing to stand in the shadow of someone who themselves may be beholding that star and walking by, hoping that somehow, their light will become ours? 

    I don't mean that we cannot receive light through preaching, teaching, conferences and seminars, only that we seem to have decided that the seeking out of and beholding of that light is left to others to hear and see firsthand from Him, while we who don't wish to "read the book", will instead "wait for the movie."  We listen to accounts of what others have beheld, but in so many ways, we never behold it ourselves.  We depend on the pastor, the evangelist, the prophet....the husband, wife, parent or friend, to tell us what God is saying.  We may believe it, but somehow, we so often don't know why we believe it.  Somehow, its just not real to us.  And, when the storms, earthquakes and emergencies of life come, the "light" we got secondhand in another's shadow, isn't sufficient for us to stand.  We need to cease depending on the story He may be writing in another's life, and experience what He wants to write in ours.
   Has the artificial light of this world and of men blinded us to the pure light of Christ?  Have the human stars become more real to us than the One who is the bright morning star Himself?  Is the light we think we have, really, as His word says, darkness after all?  Are we stumbling along with flashlights fashioned by our hands, or following and living by the light of the Prince of stars?  Where does the light we follow have its source?

Blessings,
Pastor O