I like to highlight little passages in my bible where God has revealed something beautiful to me… Sometimes, I get to a well known passage and it’s like I have never read it before. Finding absolute gold in the text between the highlighted passages.
I have a sneaking suspicion that at some point my whole bible will be underlined.
I was skimming over the setting of the scene about raising Lazarus from the dead. One of my favorite parts in the Bible is here, where Jesus proclaims that Lazarus has ‘fallen asleep’ and the disciples are all “cool! That means he will get better then!” and I can 100% see Jesus in my minds eye just looking at them, shaking his head and explaining to them that no, in fact, Lazarus is dead.
These guys are soo literal! Lets go do a miracle! Ok, but more importantly… what’s for lunch?
So in my haste to get to the good stuff, I almost missed something very valuable.
Jesus says to the disciples its time to go to Bethany, to Judea, but they object, because thats where people really want to cause harm to Jesus. Which is all beside the point except for the next three sentences:
“… Jesus replied, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight in every day? You can go through a day without the fear of stumbling when you walk in the One who gives light to the world. But you will stumble when the light is not in you, for you’ll be walking in the dark…”
(John 11:9-10)
How amazing is this?! Three major lessons in less than 20 seconds!
1. There is time to work, and time to rest, if I don’t rest, I will stumble, I will fall, I will misjudge scenarios, actions and events. I will make the wrong decisions
2. When I walk in the light, it doesn’t mean I am being a good person, it means I am walking in God’s purpose, AND more importantly, I can keep walking without being afraid that I will “stumble”. My decisions will automatically be God focused and Kingdom centered!
3. But also, if I try and walk without the guiding Light of Christ, the Kingdom plan and my purpose. If I try and figure it out on my own, trying to find a path in the dark, it is pretty much guaranteed that at best I am going to stub my toe, but much more likely, is that I will fall on my face.
Extremely logical and obvious… Here is the thing:
The path is the same path.
When we were kids, we would go camping in large groups, like summer camp, staying in army tents with guide ropes and pegs holding up the tents. Not a day went by that nobody got hurt walking to a from the tents, and not a night went by that at least one person tripped over a tent peg or a cable in the night.
The path is the same path. And worse, we know that the pegs and cables are there…
The only difference is that when I am in the Light, I can see the pitfalls and stumbling blocks, AND how to get past them!
