Guiding …
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Into Our Darkness,
Jesus Enters as an Infant
and Shines!
Isaiah 60:20
Your sun shall no more go down, or your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.
John 1:14
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
…
Words of Grace For Today
Hiking in the coastal forests, up and down hills, the tree canopy covering any view of the sky or the ocean or the mountains further inland, we came upon a lake. It was not a sandy shore. Rather the only access to the water was down a slope of a huge rock that stretched at least 20 meters wide and 40 down to the water. It was growing dark but we rested. The two young boys romped a bit. I, the only one of us parents with navigational skills, explored further for where the trail picked up. There was not a trace.
Distances were hard to gauge but we’d parked one car about 5 km further down the coast where the trail crossed near the edge of a small coastal town not far from our home. The other we left where we’d started hiking mid to late afternoon in a spot, one of many along the 186 km long trail, where one could drive, park, and jump on the trail for a shorter or longer hike, instead of taking the whole 186 in one long, multi-day hike.
But there was no trail to follow, not in either direction around the lake, nor back in any direction where we’d come. Cell phones were a new thing and I had one with me, but there was no service, not for the last kilometre or so.
Finally I hiked back to where there was service, called a friend, and even he had no clue where the trail went. He’d not be on this section enough to know where we were.
So I headed back in growing darkness, mountain lions frequenting the area as well as bears, navigation with a flashlight in spots where I needed to see, and walking in the dark where I could save battery power. This was long before LED’s so the flashlight would last maybe another half hour. …
Life has many such experiences, where serious darkness overwhelms us, where we lose the path forward, where danger could be just around any bend, behind any tree.
That darkness is the darkness of the soul.
That’s the darkness that God sent Jesus to be born as one of us, to live among us teaching and healing, and to save us with the sacrifice of his life. The light of Jesus’ life, teachings, healings, and death shines bright in every darkness, guiding us onward even when we become lost in the darkness, overwhelmed with the evil around us, alone against those that would lie and serve the devil in so many ways, in order to destroy us.
Thank God for that light!
Thank God each morning, noon, and night for that light.
…
in the dark the trail approached that big lakeside rock, winding it’s way around the steep uphill side of it and the hill that extended above it to the right. I needed the flashlight to find my way through a darker patch, unsure if there were rocks I would stumble on, and there
to my left on a tree was a trail marker, pointing to the left, down and back around a switchback, down to a creek with rocks to step across it and a clear trail that headed around the lake on that side.
I backtracked, continued on the ‘wrong’ trail to the lakeside, collected the other three, and in the dark we wound our way around that lake, through the trees as the moon rose lighting our way past more lakes and through more trees, until we arrived at the car, parked and waiting for us.