The story is told that when Robert Louis Stevenson was a child, his nanny came into his nursery to put him to bed. She found the little boy looking intently out of his bedroom window. When she called to him, he continued staring into the darkness, so she went over to ask him what he found so interesting outside. As she peered over his shoulder, she saw the lamplighter walking down the street, lighting the street lamps. Little Robert responded, “Look, Nanny. I’m watching as that man puts holes in the darkness.”
Sometimes I can become discouraged when I look out into the “darkness” of the spiritual and moral decay of our great nation. But this story reminds me that while I may not be able to change the world, I can put a “hole in the darkness.”
The Prophet Daniel was a young man who lived during a time of great darkness in the nation of Judah. The Babylonians from the east swept through and destroyed everything in a series of ruthless campaigns. When the enemy king, Nebuchadnezzar, ordered the finest and the brightest Israelites to be taken captive as slaves in his palace, Daniel was seized and marched 800 miles east, never to return. But rather than despair, Daniel put holes in the darkness…
Ann Graham Lotz