Uncle Floyd and Barabas are packing for Hidden Valley Scout Camp!  Let’s see.  They have their sleeping bags, their pillows, their bag of clothes (not that they will change their clothes that often at scout camp) Barabas’s scout book and a soccer ball.  I think that is all they need.  They put it all beside the back door, ready to load into Uncle Floyd’s truck first thing tomorrow morning. 

Jeter and Arod barked excitedly when they saw everything in the kitchen. 

“Ahhh!” said Uncle Floyd, feeling satisfied that they had everything organized.  “I reckon you’d like some cookies and a glass of milk before we go up to bed?”   He and Barabas don’t often snack right before bedtime, but this was a fun camping trip coming up and a bedtime snack would be like starting the weekend early.

So they had lots of chocolate chip cookies washed down with lots of 1% milk and went to bed, per usual.

During the night Uncle Floyd needed to get up to use the toilet.  This happens sometimes to Uncle Floyd, especially if he has had lots to drink at bedtime.

The tiny little nightlight in the bathroom gave no light at all to the hallway but Uncle Floyd knew exactly where Jeter sleeps at the top of the stairs and he carefully stepped around him in the dark.  Jeter always sleeps at the top of the stairs, as if he is guarding them during the night as they sleep. 

The next morning after they loaded the truck Uncle Floyd walked through the house to double check everything before locking up.  He ran upstairs to use the bathroom and noticed that the nightlight needed to be turned off. 

“Oh!” he thought.  “I reckon I’d better take along a flashlight and our lantern.  Good thing I thought of that!”  And so he ran and got them at the last minute.

You know, at scout camp there is no indoor toilet.  So if you wake up during the night and need to use the bathroom, you must put on your winter coat and your shoes and walk outside down a dark path towards the woods to use the outhouse!  Without a flashlight, one could trip over a rock and fall into the dark.  And maybe a bear would come and eat you up!  Nah, that part probably would not happen.

Now, what does this scout camp story have to do with our lessons this morning?  There is a passage in 2 Peter that says that Jesus and the Bible are like a lamp shining in a dark place.  And the song we will sing after the sermon goes like this :  “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

And it made me think about how Uncle Floyd can walk in the dark hallway to the bathroom at home and not trip over Jeter, but at camp he most definitely will need a light.

Sometimes we get used to things and think we don’t need the light.  We think we know it all, until circumstances change.  Then we are reminded how much we do need the light. 

Sometimes it is like that with church.  We think we know it all and stop listening or stop coming.  We stop paying attention to God.  And THAT is when we stumble.  Because without God, things would get very dark.  And then the bears COULD come and eat you up!

But with Jesus as the lamp unto my feet and the light unto my path I will not feel afraid.       THE END

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