There are time that I am reading my Bible, and I come across a verse, or verses, that I memorized as a child. Today I read, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). This is one of those verses that I memorized as a very young boy, that has stayed with me all these years. I am now sixty-one years old, and as I look back over the years of my life there has been a great deal that has taken place. I grew up in a wonderful time when children went out to play and did not need a chip placed under their skin to know where they were playing. We had this wonderful thing called parents who watched the children from a window. I can remember getting scolded by my friend’s mothers when I got out of line.
I grew up in the height of the hippie movement and experienced all the “glamor” of Woodstock, and the themes of “love” and “peace.” I witnessed the destruction of the attitude of “live and let live” with drugs becoming not only popular, but accepted as something “everyone was doing.” I got married, and we began to have children, and faced the challenges of trying to raise our family in a godly way in an ungodly time. The pressures our parents had faced for setting up guidelines in their homes, seemed to increase as we attempted to do the same in our home, with our children. Now I am a Poppy (grandfather) to ten grandchildren.
Through all the phases of my life, I have found that God’s Word has been a very effective lamp for my feet. It has been an incredible light for my path in the darkest of times. What I am trying to say is that even though time has changed many things, the Word of God has remained a constant guiding light in my life and the lives of our family. As a teenager, someone told me this simple phrase (I am sorry, I don’t know where it originated): “The Bible will keep you from sin … sin will keep you from the Bible.” I have found this saying to be very true in my life. When I am in the Word of God, I have no guarantee that I will not sin, but it is much more difficult to knowingly sin when I see the standard of the Word of God. The Bible has been a lamp for my feet when I was confused about which way to go in life. It has been a brightly shining light for my path in the darkest of days. There have been times that I have not known which way to turn, but I have always found the truths of the Bible, and the principles I have learned there to come to my heart and mind at just the right time for the guidance I have needed. Wherever your path is going today, don’t leave your Bible behind. You will need it for the journey!