Opening the cabinet door

As people understand your word, it brings light to their lives. Your word makes even simple people wise. (Psalm 119:130)

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. (Charles Spurgeon)

I need light, especially when it is the darkest. In the middle of the day, I even need light in some of those 'recessed places' in my life. Not everything is evident to light until light comes into the place where it has been excluded from exploring. Some of us need a little 'exploring' by Light, don't we? I have often heard believers say they don't know what the Bible has to say - that it is a bit too hard to understand. In answer, I often ask what 'translation' they are using. It could just be that the 'understanding' of the Word is a little 'blunted' because we choose to read the Word of God from a translation that is too hard for us to understand. Most commonly, it is that we haven't asked God to open our eyes of understanding to what it is we are reading. Once we ask for understanding, we also need to ask for help in implementing what it is we are reading!

Light in our lives isn't just automatic. I have several good lights in the kitchen, but the recesses of that corner cabinet next to the stove are not reached by those lights. I still need the flashlight to see 'way back there' in the recesses. Some of us have 'corner cabinets' in our lives that get a 'glimpse' of light on occasion, but there needs to be some very specific 'light shining' done in order to uncover what has been masked and hidden away in the recesses of our heart and mind. It is the stuff in the 'recesses' that God often focuses on when we spend time in his Word, but unless we actually open the 'door' to the light he brings, it is as useless as the flashlight with a closed cabinet door! I am still not going to know what is hidden in the recesses of that cabinet if I keep the door tightly shut! Some of us have tightly shut those areas of our heart where we have secret sins, hard to break habits, and humiliating hurts. Don't be surprised when God actually asks you to open the 'cabinet door' so he can reveal them!

God wants us to do more than just 'know' the Word of God. Many will memorize portions of scripture, but what do they really mean to them? What life-change has occurred because those words have penetrated the recesses? As we have likely heard, we need to both here and do what the Word of God commands. James 1:25 reminds us, "But when you look into God’s perfect law that sets people free, pay attention to it. If you do what it says, you will have God’s blessing. Never just listen to his teaching and forget what you heard." Pray for wisdom, but don't expect it to be automatic. Sometimes we need to take steps of obedience in order to have the light reflected into those 'recesses'. I have to open the cabinet door to find the rolling pin way back there in the recesses. You and I might just have to open up a few unpleasant thoughts, memories, or habitual patterns to his review in order to find the root and be rid of it once and for all. Just sayin!