Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday July 22, 2009

When I was a boy, I liked a song called, "The Old Lamplighter." It was based on the occupation of the men and perhaps women who lit the oil lamps of cities around the world, prior to the electric light. There seemed to be a certain romance associated the lighting of lamps.

John Ruskin wrote about the lamplighter of his day. He watched as a lamplighter made his way along the street and onto a distant hill. Ruskin said,

"There is what I mean by being a real Christian. You can trace his course by the lights he leaves burning."

I have observed the truth of Ruskin's illustration.

One of my best friends over the years was a dear old mountain man by the name of Joe Edmonds. Joe had little of this worlds goods, but he had a burning love for the Lord and for people. One day as we rode along in his old pickup truck, we passed by the few places along the road to his home from the little airport where he had picked me up. I asked Joe about the people that lived there. He responded with history, some of it going back to the Revolutionary War. Max Meadows was the site of one of the battles in our fight for liberty.

Joe also told me of several families that had experienced the change that comes to a life when touched by the Masters hand. He pointed to a humble home and told of the man who lived in the house helping to make bootleg whiskey from the time he was a child. Joe then told how after many years of explaining the reality of Christ, and just being a friend, the man had forsaken the ways of a bootlegger and now served the Lord in a little mountain church. Joe was a little frustrated because the man he worked on for so long, ended up going to another church upon his profession. Joe said it "sorta seemed like eating at one restaurant and paying at another." He did admit that the man had "evidence" of a real conversion. We agreed that the man, through faith in Christ, could get into heaven from the other church, but that the Lord would most likely get on his case about it!

In all, on this short trip of about fifteen miles back in the mountain, Joe pointed out twelve homes, where the light of the glorious gospel of Christ now shines bright. Joe was able to do this in a non-bragging way and I was inspired by the manner and substance of what he said about his friends and neighbors.

Joe was a Lamplighter for lamps that will shine forever. May his tribe increase. As Robert Louis Stevenson while yet a child watching a lamplighter exclaimed, "Look, He's punching holes in the darkness."

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2002/2009 Revised Use with credit

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