I want to apologize to my wife in advance for telling this story, but I have to because it illustrates a necessary point so well. Tuesday night we had been out to our new house doing some work: cleaning cabinets, patching dry wall, etc. When we finished shortly after 10:00 we got ready to leave and Kristy went back through the house turning off lights and locking doors. When she got to the front of the house she turned off the outside lights before shutting the door and coming down the steps. Let me interject here and say that where our house is there are no streetlights, thus when the outside lights of the house are off it is pitch-black darkness around you. So she started down the steps but got to the bottom and missed the last one falling down and twisting her ankle. The result was a visit to the local urgent care clinic yesterday at lunch for an X-ray (only a mild sprain). She’s doing fine, but does this not provide a picture perfect example of what happens when we try to walk in darkness?
“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:5-7). The Bible characterizes the ways of the world as darkness. So when we attempt to direct the affairs of our lives according to the ways of the world John says we are walking in darkness. But when we walk in darkness one thing is sure to happen: we will stumble and fall. This is true physically and it is just as true spiritually. David wrote that God’s word is a “lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). To follow the proper path through life (Matthew 7:13) we must keep the light of God ever before us illuminating our way. To do other wise will ensure our failure because that’s just what happens when we try to walk in darkness!