Burn, Baby, Burn

As I read the passage for today in my journey through Exodus I came across these verses: "Command the Israelites to bring you clear oil of pressed olives for the light so that the lamps may be kept burning. In the Tent of Meeting, outside the curtain that is in front of the Testimony, Aaron and his sons are to keep the lamps burning before the Lord from evening till morning. This is to be a lasting ordinance among the Israelites for the generations to come" (Exodus 27:20, 21, NIV).

1 Samuel 3:3 describes the boy Samuel, lying beside the altar during the night. He was probably tending the lamps when God called him. The lamps were an eternal symbol of the presence of God among His people. God was always on duty, as it seems at least one person was to be.

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The picture reminded me that, as believers, we need to be always ready, day and night, to reflect the light of God in a dark world. This old hymn well expresses our mission:

Brightly beams our Father’s mercy,

From His lighthouse evermore,

But to us He gives the keeping

Of the lights along the shore.

Refrain:

Let the lower lights be burning!

Send a gleam across the wave!

Some poor struggling, fainting seaman

You may rescue, you may save.

Dark the night of sin has settled,

Loud the angry billows roar;

Eager eyes are watching, longing,

For the lights along the shore.

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother;

Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,

Trying now to make the harbor,

In the darkness may be lost.
Philip Bliss, 1871

As we sink our roots deeper into the Word of God, we "trim the wick" of our lamp, so that the light will shine as brightly as it can. We just never know who might need to see it as they stumble in the dark.