Trip Hazard

I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.

John 8:12 (NLT)

I had an incident which happened to me a while back that was both painful and a bit embarrassing. Back then I lived only a hundred yards or so from the church where I pastored, so I often times ventured over to the building to do miscellaneous things. Often times this involved going over to open or close all of the windows (there’s a lot of them) to either help the church building cool off or keep the warmness in. One evening, a thunderstorm was coming through the area and I knew that the windows at the church were open. So, I decided to go over and get them closed up, lest the wind blow things around inside the church or slam windows shut (We already had one break due to a previous windstorm). Though it was dark outside, I had walked this path many times, so I didn’t grab a flashlight. I headed out into the dark, trotting towards the church. At about the halfway point, things went very wrong. My toe tripped on something unseen and caused my body to fall at a rapid pace toward the ground. In fact, I fell so fast, I wasn’t able to get my hands out to brace myself. I ended up doing a header into the gravel road I was trotting down – skinning up my knee, wrist, and face in the process. So, there I lay bleeding and in a lot of pain. Luckily the wounds healed and nothing was broken. But, next time I venture out into the darkness, I’m taking a light with me.

When it comes to living this life in this dark world, we have two choices. We can stumble around in the darkness, or we can actually allow the light of Jesus to shine into it, lighting our path as we go. As Jesus stated in our verse today, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”

So, you have a choice to make. You can choose to navigate this life without Jesus, and you will stumble and fall. You will get hurt and you will never find your way to eternal life. Or you can walk in the light of a relationship with Jesus. Walking side-by-side He will point out the trip hazards. He will light up the path in front of you. He will help to minimize the self-inflicted pain we experience. He will lead us to our eternal home with Him.

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