Coffee in the Dark
Read
Psalms 119:103-105 (KJV)
How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
What It Is Speaking to Me
The other morning I made coffee in the dark. When I get up it's dark outside and our house is dark. Usually I turn on the kitchen overhead light and make coffee and get started on the day. But I didn't sleep well that night, and wasn't in the mood for the rude brightening that would happen if I turned on the light. So I could see well enough (so I thought) to do all the actions in relative darkness. Load the beans, grind the coffee, fill machine with water, load beans in the machine, hit start. Success. And for the most part I did all those things successfully in the dark.
Except for one.
The water tank on our coffee maker is detachable, so usually I take the tank to the sink, fill it up, and set it back on the coffee maker full of water. Well, I learned that morning that if it doesn't get seated properly, it will slowly, quietly leak water out onto your kitchen counter. I noticed it, standing there in the dark, not when it started to happen, but only once it had filled the countertop and started dripping onto my feet. It is quietly alarming to suddenly feel liquid on your feet in the dark when you are not expecting it. All in all, a much more jarring experience than my initial reluctance to just turn on the lights that fateful morning.
The Word is a lamp, a light for our daily path. The kind of lamp the psalmist is describing is a small handheld lamp. One that didn't really light up a whole room, just one for the immediate vicinity around you. One that would be helpful for making coffee in the morning. Sometimes we want the Bible to light our whole life. And it certainly does in one way, but it doesn't tell us what we will be doing ten years from now, it doesn't explain all the steps that are involved from where we are today to the day we die. It is a lamp unto our feet, not a lamp for the whole house. Our feet are never more than one step ahead or behind us. Sometimes that is all the lamp will light. The next step. Or the last step.
Sometimes because of that, there can be a temptation to ignore the lamp altogether and create our own light. Light based on our own experience, our own wisdom or wisdom of the world, our own abilities, etc. And it can seem like that is a bright source of light. But in reality, we are just David making coffee in the dark. I have made coffee the same way, on the same machine for years. If the light had been on, I would have noticed immediately my mistake and avoided having to get a mop out.
Let's not be like me. Don't "make your coffee" in the dark. His Word IS a sufficient light for your feet today. Trust that light, and enjoy your "coffee" today.
What Is It Saying to You?
What do you try to "do in the dark" in your life?
What self-reliance, self-wisdom, self-experience do you perhaps rely on more than God's Word?
Have you ever made a mess doing something in the dark? (Literally or metaphorically)
What Are We Going to Do About It?
Read these verses again, or read some other ones, and ask God to light your feet with them today. To give you an opportunity to use the Word you read.
