Towards the Light

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward. (Isaiah 58:8)

Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous. (Psalm 112:4)

But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. (Proverbs 4:18)

The passage here from Proverbs is a well known and much quoted one, thoughts flow from my mind as soon as I read it. It leads me to reflect: what we know already influences so much what we learn. It is so much easier to study deeply into God's word after you have already spent a few years studying it, so if you are new to the Bible take courage. On the other hand, no matter how much of the Bible I learn I find new and strange passages and it is much easier to dwell on the old familiar verses and say the same old things than it is to step out and extend my knowledge by personal research.

We are looking at Isaiah 58, which talks about how God wants us to prepare our hearts for revival and the return of Jesus. Lo, the passage from Psalms also connects light in darkness with compassion and righteousness. It is noteworthy that compassion and righteousness are together like this. In the Bible, being kind to others is not elevated above or distinct from doing the right thing in terms of obeying God's law. Righteousness is doing what is right. What is right is defined by God's law in the Bible. Being gracious, (forgiving) compassionate and righteous are attributes of the upright: and the upright can see what to do and where to go even when things are dark and confusing, even when others cannot see the right way. It doesn't mean that the upright will not get lost while walking through a forest, it means the upright will not be lost morally or lost for eternity.

The just is the man that just (only) does what is right (my definition, not an exhaustive one). His path is the course he takes: his life decisions, his responses to changing circumstances, his way of interacting with others. It is his way of life.
The just is what we can be, we cannot always know what we can do to be compassionate or righteous; but we can determine to aspire to these things and plead to Jesus for a changed heart every day. Then we can go off and just do what we believe to be right. We may not have a lot of light at first, and we will probably stumble frequently especially at first. But as we keep on the path the sun rises, and we have more light and see better and fail less frequently. We are more embarrassed about our failures because it is light and we thought we were doing well (also people can see us now), but we must carry on anyway. Putting pride aside, just keep walking the path towards the light. Actually it is not so much like the sun rising as like walking towards a distant floodlight. As we come closer it seems to rise and illuminates our surroundings more brightly: but it is not moving, it is always there, but we see better as we draw closer.

It's a bit like the old cliche "If you find you are not as close to God as you used to be: ask yourself who moved."

But I think that when I feel that I am further from God it is only because I can see better and I realise how far I have to go. Take heart and keep moving towards the light.