Traveling on with Bethlehem's Light

My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel (Luke 2: 30-32).

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path (Psalm 119: 105).

We haven’t taken down our Christmas tree yet; in some strange way I find its green branches and coloured lights comforting and reassuring and I want to hang on to them as long as I can.

But I know the tree will be gone by the end of the week, and if I’m not careful, life will continue on into the winter with a “same old, same old” feel to it.

Here’s what “same old” looks like:  a couple of years ago January 20 was awarded the label of “the most depressing day of the year.”  It received this dubious honour for three reasons: 

• most people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by this date.
• the Christmas shopping credit card statements arrive.
• winter snow now seems old, and spring is still a long two months away. 

I can’t help you if you have credit card or snow issues, but I have an idea for those resolutions.  Instead of beginning this term in “same old” mode, I invite you to travel on from Bethlehem into Epiphany.

Today is the first day of Epiphany, which celebrates the light of Christ being revealed to the Gentiles, as foretold by Simeon (see the verses from Luke 2, above).  A star led the Magi to the Savior, but you and I now travel on from Bethlehem guided by that Light of the world as we come to know him through the Scriptures.  As David sings so eloquently, “In your light we see light” (Ps. 36: 9).   Through the word written we see the Word made flesh.

Do you find it a challenge to invite the Scriptures to be a light to your path? Instead of New Year’s resolutions, try these Epiphany resolutions:

• Next week Tuesday and Wednesday Andy Crouch, a very wise interpreter of Scripture, will make several presentations on campus.  Hear him as often as you can.
• Every day this month the chaplaincy team will send out a different suggestion for reading Scripture.  Spend two minutes every day allowing these suggestions to stretch your own walking in the Word.

Psychologists tell us that new habits are best developed by small steps, and it takes 25 days to develop a new habit.  There are 25 days left in January.  Who knows, might the Lord use those two minutes a day to change your life….?

When I was thirty years old, a wise, older believer challenged me to spend three consecutive hours soaking in Psalm 23.  I think he realized that I needed a radical strategy to deal with the weak and random ways I was trying to live by Scripture’s light.  My walk with the Light of the World has not been the same since that day.  My prayer for Redeemer is that with our Epiphany resolutions, January 20 (two weeks from today) will actually be one of the most encouraging days of the year.  

May the Lord bless you richly as you walk with Him into 2014.