The Light Within

I heard a story in church a few months ago that answered some very crucial questions I had been having.  Today I am in the frame of mind to share them.

Can we be available to everybody? Is being available and ready to help someone be a wrong decision in the larger scheme of things? Sometimes do we have to refuse and become bad to be in fact right in a larger scheme?



Here's the story that will help us compare our situation and take a stance.

Many years ago in a little village on a rocky seacoast, there was a lighthouse. A new lighthouse keeper was once appointed from that village. He was a good man whom all the villagers loved and often sought help from as he never said 'No" to any request. He was given a limited amount of oil every month, enough to light the lamp to full flame for a month.
It so happened one month that a relative who lived nearby dropped in one night and said his son had an exam and the lights were out..could he spare him some oil
The man wanted to help his relative and gave him some oil
Soon one after another followed with one genuine need or other and the kind keeper didnt feel it right to deny them help..

But by the month end there was little oil to run the light to full flame. The light was dim.
One fateful night three ships crashed on that rocky beach and thousands of lives were lost.

Such an event had never happened since the lighthouse had been constructed.
When the keeper was questioned by the authorities he admitted that the flame was low as he had given some oil to needy neighbours
"You were given just one Job, to keep the light burning of your lighthouse, you can never compromise your job to light a few people's lamps.
In keeping a few lamps aflame for few hours you compromised the lives of thousands of people"

The lightkeeper realised his great folly but too late

The moral of the story is that we have to know what our job really is. Some decisions call us to deny our help and availability to a few but it might in fact be for a relatively better and more enduring good, that which is our real calling. Our first and foremost responsibility is to the light within us. If any circumstance makes our flame, our good light any lesser, we make life hell for those dependent on our light. 

Somehow this story helped me become sure of some decisions of my life and I hope it would help others too.
Keep your lights burning