For Thou art my lamp, O Lord; and the Lord will lighten my darkness.
Rejoicing in the light of God
The Rev. Dr. Horton, who, after a period of seclusion through trouble with his eyesight, recently returned to hischurch at Hampstead, related in one of his Sabbath sermons how one day he was in the oculist’s consulting-room at Wiesbaden, and as he waited he put his hand into his pocket and drew out his little Bible--not to read it, but to see if he could--and as he opened it his eyes tell on the text in 2 Samuel., “For Thou art my lamp, O Lord: and the Lord will lighten my darkness.” “I had not been aware of the very existence of this text, and do not know who but an angel could have led me to it; but I felt that whether I received my sight or not, those words were enough for me, and from that time I seemed to know that I should not die, but live to proclaim the words of this life.”
Christians’ love of the light
It is worth noting how plants and trees turn to the light; how bleached vegetation becomes if it be shut up in darkness. The utter dark is dreadful to men, it may even be felt, so does it press upon the mind. The dimness of a foggy day depresses many spirits more than trouble or pain. The cry of the sick man, “Would God it were morning!” is the groan of all healthy life when gloom surrounds it. What, then, can be said, if there be light, and we refuse it? He must have ill work on hand who loves the darkness. Only bats, and owls, and unclean and ravenous things are fond of the night. Children of light walk in the light, and reflect the light. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Light essential for vigorous life
What a wonderful effect the light of God’s countenance has upon men who have the Divine life in them, but who have been living in the dark! Travellers tell us that, in the vast forests of the Amazon and the Orinoco, you may sometimes see, on a grand scale, the influence Of light in the colouring of the plants when the leaf-buds are developing One says:--“Clouds and rain sometimes obscure the atmosphere for several days together, and during this time the buds expand themselves into leaves. But theseleaves have a pallid hue till the sun appears, when in a few hours of dear sky and splendid sunshine, their colour is changed to a vivid green. It has been related that, during twenty days of dark, dull weather, the sun not once making his appearance, the leaves were expanded to their full size, but were almost white. One forenoon the sun began to shine in full brightness, when the colour of the forest changed so rapidly that its progress might be marked. By the middle of the afternoon, the whole, for many miles, presented the usual summer dress.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Turn your face to the light
It had been one of those days on which everything goes contrary, and I had come home tired and discouraged. As I sank into a chair, I groaned, “Everything looks dark, dark.” “Why don’t you turn your face to the light, auntie, dear?” said my little niece, who was standing unperceived beside me. “Turn your face to the light!” The word sot me thinking. That was just what I had not been doing. I had persistently kept nay face in the opposite direction, refusing to see the faintest glimmer of brightness. Artless little comforter I She did not know what healing she had brought. Years had gone by since then, but the simple words have never been forgotten, “Turn your face to the light.”
Light and health
Sir James Wylie, late physician to the Emperor of Russia, attentively studied the effects of light as a curative agent in the hospital of St. Petersburg, and he discovered that the number of patients who were cured in rosins properly lighted was four times that of those confined in dark room. These different results are due to the agency of light, without a full supply of which plants and animals maintain but a sickly and feeble existence. Light is the cheapest and best of all medicines. Nervous ailments yield to the power of sunshine. Pallid faces grow fresh and ruddy beneath its glow. The sun’s rays have wonderful purifying power. (H. L. Hastings.)
