Flashlights

We used to go camping when the boys were growing up. You cannot adequately appreciate a hotel until you’ve been camping. I always hug the front desk clerk now whenever we check in.

I have always gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and during these campouts, my bladder was completely unaware that it would be enormously inconvenient to do this because either there wasn’t a bathroom if we were in a primitive campground or the bathroom was a hike away if it was a civilized campground. My husband would be dead to the world. My boys were….well, have you ever walked on a trail with a son in the dark? They are not singlemindedly focused on the trail. They focus on the trees, the path behind us, the sky, the woods and then every once in awhile…the path. Plus no way they would have stood outside alone while I went into the ladies room or in the dark alone while I, with the flashlight, found an appropriate bush because no way was I peeing into pitch black darkness.

So all alone, I’d grab the flashlight and head out. I knew the general direction but the path I was walking on usually changed with each footfall. A root, stones, a washout, steps down or up, it was important to keep the light illuminating the path right in front of me. Every once in awhile I’d stop and get my bearings, look all around me to see if it looked familiar, if there were any signs confirming I was on my way to the bath house, if there were wild animals or creepy people lurking in the woods. Even if the bathroom was a half mile away, I never pointed my flashlight on the bath house and kept it there. Never did. I always pointed it at the path directly in front of my feet.

Why do we do keep pointing our flashlights at the bath house a half mile away, in life?

My son is getting married with all the requisite people coming into town, moving two households and one puppy into one house, working full time, taking three graduate level classes….all in one three day period. Keep in mind he is a man and he is 25. He does not think like a woman. Why are we always surprised. My flashlight this morning was pointed squarely on him and those three days.

What is your flashlight pointing on?

“Do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. “ Matt 6:34.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path.” Psm 119:105

I’m to ask God what he wants me to do… today. What he says, what he asks me to do may impact tomorrow or next year or twenty years from now…but the word he gives me is what he wants me to do today. His word is a lamp that lights up the path in front of my feet. Not a lamp to light up the bath house a half mile away or the three day marathon a month from now.

Today, He said, "Offer your help on the next two weekends and then let it go." I think I need “Let It Go” tattooed on my hands and forehead.

This is a little bitty non life and death logistical issue compared to huge problems that I may face as my day progresses. So He’s given me light for this issue and then I let it go and move on to the next. He can handle this.

Anxiety wraps me up in the problem instead of freeing me to move ahead and not miss what is on His agenda for the rest of the day. And I don’t want to miss any of it.

When I get ensnared by anxiety, I need to ask myself where my flashlight is pointing. Is it at the mountains in the distance or on the path at my feet? He’ll let me know when to plan for mountains in the distance if I need to.

Joshua led over a million men, women and children whose sole activity for forty years was walking around in a wilderness, into a promised land that could only be taken by force.

God said, “I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous.” In the next breath he said, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night.”

He assured Joshua he’d be right there with him and that he needed to be strong and courageous to do what God was going to tell him to do. This could only be accomplished if Joshua constantly meditated on his word which consequently would make him aware of His presence. It would permeate every thought and action enabling him to trust him explicitly. If Joshua needed to be aware of something, warned, encouraged, a plan changed, reformulated, God would let him know, he’d light up that section of the path. “Just trust Me.”

Nothing’s changed has it.