Sir Harry Lauder, the famed Scottish humorist at the turn of the 20th century, was a Christian. He described an incident that he had observed one evening that speaks powerfully of what our Christian lives should be. Here are his words:

"I was sitting in the gloamin' an' a man passed by the window. He was the lamplighter. He pushed his pole into the lamp and lighted it. Then he went to another and another. Now I didn't see him. But I knew where he was by the lights as they broke out down the street, until he had left a beautiful avenue of light. Ye're a lamplighter. They'll know where ye've been by the lights ye have lit."

This reminded me of something I just heard in Bible study the other day: "Darkness does not overtake light but light overtakes darkness." Just one candle can illuminate our paths in the darkest of nights. And in this ever darkening world in which we live, we have the Light of the World to shine into the darkest corners of doubt and discouragement and disease and defeat. I shudder how quickly I forget that I have within me the Light of the World.

So often I grope around in my busyness and weakness as if I had no light. But Ephesians 5:8 commands us "...for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light." Darkness is my past. But, as we saw the other day, we are to "forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing!" (Is. 43:18) So today, not tomorrow or some day in the future when I get it all together, today I am called to walk as children of light. Because that is what I am.

It makes me weep to even write that because I am so so far from a child of light--so full of selfishness and pride and wrong priorities and sin--but the reality is that in Christ, that is what I am. That is what you are: a child of light who is called to walk in this dark world as a lamplighter. To light those lamps as we carpool and shop for groceries and fold laundry and try to train our children so that "people will know where ye've been by the lamps ye have lit."

O Lord Jesus, help me to be a lamplighter for You wherever I go and with whomever I meet. Might the light of Your glory be somehow reflected in me--this weakest of vessels. Help me never to forget that the power and the light are all from and in and through You. To be the all the glory.

p.s. A clear example of being a lamplighter for Christ occurred just the other night when Colt McCoy, the quarterback for Texas was injured at the beginning of the national championship game and was unable to play the entire game. What a heartbreak for this godly young man who had practiced and sacrificed for this moment his entire life. Yet when asked about his feelings after the game, he fought back tears and responded with graciousness, complimenting and congratulating Alabama. He then declared, "I always give God the glory. I never question why things happen the way they do. God is in control of my life and I know that if nothing else, I'm standing on the Rock." That is being a lamplighter. It's easy to lamp lights when everything is going your way, during the bright morning sunshine, but the lamps shine the most brilliantly in the blackest of nights. When we shine the light of Christ in the midst of our disappointments and failures and weakness, how much brighter shines His Light. "Shine Jesus shine!"