Your word is a lamp to my feet
Psalm 119:105 ESV
and a light to my path.
Growing up, I would devour massive chapter books in an afternoon. It didn’t matter what the storyline was or the genre; I loved to read. As you can imagine, I very quickly earned the title of a ‘bookworm.’ But there was one caveat, I refused to re-read books. After I was finished, I was finished. I never saw the point of re-reading something that I had already read. The storyline was predictable and the words seemed to fall flat the second time around. To me, it felt like a waste of time when there were so many more books out there to explore. For a long time, I had that same mindset about the Bible.
See, I grew up in the church, so I heard countless sermons on what the Bible said. I ‘knew’ the stories, (or so I thought). That filled me with this false sense of security. Surely, I was living according to what the word said because I followed what the sermons said. It wasn’t until I started to read the Bible for myself that I saw my error. God’s word is the lamp unto my feet, not someone else’s sermon.
The Bible is a massive story of love, disobedience, and mercy spanning generations and generations. The guidance that lives within its pages shook me to my core, so much so, that I started to re-read it. Yes. Re-read. And what I found is that it doesn’t fall flat, it just gets better each time. I see new things each and every time I look at a passage. That’s the beauty of the word of God. It sees you. It reads you. It corrects you. It advises you. It encourages you. It inspires you to live holy. This is why we have to keep going back to the lamp to light our paths because that is the only way that we will be able to walk according to God’s plan for us.
