He was blind and used a guide dog to get around. On a couple of occasions, I watched his interaction with the dog and how he quietly issued commands to “sit,” “stay,” “here,” and so on, to which the dog would immediately respond. Once they were moving, the dog was Paul’s eyes. He seemed to know where everything was and as the master moved around in a world of darkness, he relied on his ‘best friend’ to guide him around obstacles and whatever else was in the way. It was obvious that the bond between them was one of trust.
In Psalm 119:105 we read, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (KJV), and in these words, we find a similar kind of relationship. As the believer goes about in a darkened world, we need our own “guide dog,” and we have the light of God’s word to show us the way. In his commentary on this verse, Bible Scholar Matthew Henry writes, “It [the Word] discovers to us, concerning God and ourselves, that which otherwise we could not have known; it shows us what is amiss, and will be dangerous; it directs us in our work and way, and a dark place indeed the world would be without it. It is a lamp which we may set up by us, and take into our hands for our own particular use…to direct us in the right ordering of our conversation, both in the choice of our way in general and in the particular steps we take in that way, that we may not take a false way nor a false step in the right way. We are then truly sensible of God’s goodness to us in giving us such a lamp and light when we make it a guide to our feet, our path.”
The Christian cannot afford to go about our business without the security of God’s word lighting our way. In his notes on the Bible, Albert Barnes writes, “He who makes the word of God his guide, and marks its teachings, is in the right way. He will clearly see the path. He will be able to mark the road in which he ought to go, and to avoid all those by-paths which would lead him astray. He will see where those by-roads turn off from the main path—often at a very small angle, and so that there seems to be no divergence. He will see any obstruction which may lie in his path; any declivity or precipice which may be near, and down which, in a dark night, one might fall. Man needs such a guide, and the Bible is such a guide.”
Because the word of God is so encompassing, it has something to say about every area of our lives. Every step we need to take, every decision we need to make, we can trust it to guide us in the right direction. A lamp unto our feet and a light to our path. Amidst the hustle and bustle of daily living, are you making effective use of it?
