The Lightkeeper

“The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.

If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light."

Luke 11:34-36

Years ago, I discovered the most amazing tool. In my devotional that year in December, I talked about the following scene at the DeStefano’s. My son Anthony was helping by hanging the outside lights. We had had several sets of lights that draped like a swag across the front of the house for probably almost 15 years. I just loved the way that they looked, and you couldn’t find ones like them anymore to replace worn out sets. After he got them all up, plugged them in and yes, you guessed it, half of the sets didn’t work. My husband told me that he thought that was the end of these special light sets. I was really disappointed because I loved these lights. Then I remembered something that I saw as I was wandering through Lowes and Home Depot a few weeks previous (by the way, two of my favorite stores). (I miss the days when I could do that.) It was called the “Lightkeeper Pro.” I had seen a commercial for it and just thought it was another of those gimmicks

that you buy and sure enough, it doesn’t work. So, I decided to go online and check out the reviews. To my surprise, I read review after review that was singing its praises. I told my husband that it was worth a try. I was telling Heather and my son-in-law Shane about it and they almost laughed, being very skeptical. So, Carlo went out and got one and brought it home. Now came the moment of truth. I read the directions and proceeded to try it out on my first set of dead lights. The concept

is that you plug anyone of the light sockets into this tool which looks like a gun (no doubt the inventor had struggled many hours as I have over the years taking strands of lights and going bulb by bulb trying in vain to find the one that was causing the problem and decided it would be easier to take a gun and shoot it). Then you click the trigger a few times and voila the lights come on. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Heather was half chuckling as she watched me. To all of our

amazement, after the second click the lights came on. I’m not sure, but I think I heard the “Hallelujah Chorus” being sung somewhere in the distance. It was like magic. I went on to fix strand after strand. After each set was fixed and lit, it was easy to see which bulbs needed to be replaced. By the way, we used it again this year and it worked again. I began to think about how this worked. How did it do that? At that point, it was worth its weight in gold to me and saved hours and hours of frustration not to mention the money saved from not having to buy new lights. Later in that day, I

was telling Ken Carey (Fairwinds’ resident electrician and knowledgeable in all kinds of things.) about this wonderful discovery and asked him how this tool worked. He told me that he had already known about this tool and explained to me how it worked. He said that the batteries in the gun send an electrical charge through the lights and weld the bulbs that had lost contact or make it so the current can bypass burnt out bulbs to keep the rest of the strand lit. At this point, I didn’t

even care, it worked. As I got to thinking about this later, I thought about our spiritual lights. How brightly we shine when we are first saved. Every bulb is lit and we twinkle in this dark world

so beautifully. Then in time, we come across a trial or a hurdle in our Christian walk. We get discouraged and begin to back off on our church attendance (out goes a bulb), our Bible reading (out goes another bulb), quiet time with the Lord (yet another bulb), tithing (another bulb), being a witness, etc. Out go the lights one by one until we are no longer effective as a light in a lost world. What happened? We let sin creep in a little at a time. Do you remember a time in your life when all of your bulbs were burning bright? Look at your life now. Do you have burned out bulbs? I have great news for you. Jesus, the ultimate LIGHTKEEPER can make you effective and bright again.

“For thou art my lamp, O Lord: and the Lord will lighten my darkness.”

2 Samuel 22:29

Just plug into His power and ask for forgiveness. He will energize and fix your broken lights so that you will shine brightly as you once did. When He shines His light through us, we can see which bulbs have burned out and need to be replaced. I thought the directions for this tool were interesting especially one of the questions asked about its procedures. “Is it necessary to replace burned out bulbs in order to fix my lights? Yes. Failing to replace burned out bulbs increases the voltage to the balance of the set each time a bulb burns out. The increased voltages to the other bulbs accelerates the burn out of the remaining bulbs.”

How interesting because that’s what happens to us as Christians. We get disgruntled about one thing over here and the next thing you know, not only that bulb goes out but it takes another with it. Then on and on it goes until we don’t

shine at all. All of our lights have burned out, and we are no longer effective in shedding light on our own way let alone those who are watching our lives and may be unsaved.

So let me encourage you TODAY! Pull out all of the “bad” bulbs in your strand. Plug into THE Lightkeeper and ask for forgiveness and restoration so that your light will once again shine brightly with HIS glorious light.

“For thou wilt light my candle:

the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.”

Psalms 18:28