Hope at Chickamauga

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."   John 1:1

"Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."  Psalm 199:105

Driving through Chickamauga Battlefield this afternoon, I was listening to my Straight Ahead CD of Amy Grant that I have enjoyed for many years.  When she began singing "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path", I smiled remembering my five year old son singing every word. And remembered with awe and gratitude what happened on Lookout Mountain.

We all have done things that were dumb and dangerous.  Maybe we got hurt and maybe we didn't.   But since we lived to tell the tale, it makes for a really good story. Such was the case in the summer of 1986.

When our son was a baby and an adolescent we were fortunate to have found several really good babysitters. In the last few years of his need for a sitter, his favorite babysitter had a car.  After that he demanded of us that any babysitter drive a car.  But until then, the sitter either got a ride to our house or I went and picked her up and took her home. In this case I drove to Chattanooga Valley to pick her up and then later drove her home.

On my way back home at about ten o'clock pm,  I noticed a thunder storm developing on Lookout Mountain. At that time I was under the illusion that my car would insulate me from a lightning strike.  The metal frame of an automobile can offer some protection, but if 500 million volts of electricity had chosen to find the ground through me, then I would have been toast,

Until that night on Lookout Mountain, when I read Psalm 199 verse 105,  I imagined God providing enough light in any situation for me to see the path ahead of me.  I even recall a picture from childhood of a man with a lantern on a path to illustrate that verse.  That's the light I imagined. What happened that night on Lookout Mountain changed all that.

I drove the four miles from the valley to the top of the mountain while I listened to Amy Grant. I shut off the engine. While continuing to listen to Amy sing, the storm was brewing. The lightning that had been approaching from a distance was now all around me, The lightning was blinding and the thunder was deafening.  It was all simultaneous. There was no space between the two.  The thunder actually shook the car. The only power I could compare it to was the televised roar and rumble of the Saturn V rocket as it lifted its Apollo payload off the pad at the Kennedy Space Center . Only  I was witnessing this first hand.  I was riding the rocket. Because of my delusional thinking, I had absolutely no fear; I just enjoyed the show. The light not only illumined the mountain, but illumined the valley as well.  With each subsequent explosion, it  was as bright as day. As the storm reached the peak of its intensity, over the roar I could  hear Amy singing "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. When I feel afraid think I've lost my way still you're there right beside me. Nothing will I fear as long as you are near. Please be with me till the end."   In a flash, so to speak,  I experienced a paradigm shift of immense proportions.The "light of God" I realized is not a lantern or a flashlight, it is as bright as the surface of the sun,  or of a billion suns.  God doesn't give me light, He is the Light,  "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great Light."

The "Word" of John 1 is no less than the force that created the universe. That's what it says, "In the beginning was the Word."  The Greeks called it Logos. The Chinese call it the Tao. Christians call it God.    According to the very first verse of the Bible, when God stepped out into the void of nothingness,  He said, "Let there be light! And there was Light."  "Thy Word...is Light!"

Since that night I have never again intentionally  put myself in  harm's way regarding a thunder storm.  I  respect the warning, "If you can hear thunder, you can be struck by lightning." But when I'm in the presence of thunder and lightning, I'm also feel that I am in the Presence of the power of creation. I'm always reminded of who I am and Whose I am. I understand that God  is very capable of helping me when I need Divine direction or whenever I'm  going through a difficult time.

As I drove through Chickamauga Battlefield this afternoon and saw all of the artillery and stacks of cannonballs, I thought of the 125,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who fought there during the two nights and three days of that ferocious battle. I considered that the thunder of the cannons must have sounded a lot like the thunder on the mountain. The flash of the explosions was not unlike the flash of the lightning.  But none of those soldiers were there intentionally like I was on Lookout Mountain. There was nothing fun or entertaining about those explosions.  Whereas, I had no fear, fear was those soldiers' constant companion.  I just hope that as those cannons boomed and cannonballs flashed, at least some of the soldiers were thinking, "Thy Word is a lamp unto  my feet and a light unto my path"  And walked in that assurance toward the light of a new day.