“Wherefore, be faithful, praying always, having your lamps trimmed and burning, and oil with you, that you may be ready at the coming of the Bridegroom” (D&C 33:17). Jesus Christ has called us the light of the world. He also described lamps in some detail in His parable of the wise and foolish virgins. The lamp has four important parts. There is the light, the wick, the oil, and the lamp itself. The light of Christ is given to each of us. It is how we innately know good from bad. The light of Christ is our inner spark of creativity, the source of all truth, the igniter and instigator of joy. It is a gift from God that we can use to light our lamps at any time, although it is especially easy to light our lamps when we are in the heart of the furnace of affliction. We could say that the clay vessel or body of the lamp represents our own bodies and souls. Only those of God's children who have actually come down to Earth to receive a body have the capacity to be the light of the world. Our lamps can be clean and whole and shiny or filthy and broken and blackened with soot. If our lamp is to provide any light at all, then it must also have a wick and oil. Both are important. If we try to light a lamp full of oil directly, it is just going to burn up quickly and messily and possibly even explode. Similarly, if we try to light only the wick with no oil in it, it is also going to burn up quickly, giving off almost no light or warmth. The wick represents our own strength, will, understanding, and wisdom, such as they are. The oil represents the strength, power, and grace of our Lord. We are the light of the world when we successfully combine our own strength, faith, agency, and responsibilities with the mercy, grace, and power of our Savior and His Atonement. The wick works by carrying oil up to the flame so that it is mostly the oil that burns and not so much the wick itself. If we come to rely upon or consider too highly our own strength and wisdom, we will allow our wicks to get too long, taking us farther from the protective covering of oil and the protective covering of the Atonement. Just as a wick that has not been trimmed properly begins to curl inwards on itself and creates a much hotter flame that burns through the oil more quickly and leaves the lamp more full of soot and darkness, so too when we do not keep in check our natural inclinations we start to turn inwards so that the fiery afflictions we face burn all the hotter and leave us ever more coated in sooty blackness. We of course face the same kinds of dangers from letting the oil in our lamps run too low. We may sometimes feel that there is no harm in skipping out on reading our scriptures or paying our tithing or attending sacrament meeting, but the lamp is always burning and if we are not continuously replenishing our oil we will run out and then we will burn out and we will no longer be the light of the world but we will be in the dark and the cold, lost and confused and alone. We can't afford to try and light our way or be a light to others if we do not keep our lamps burning properly, with our wicks trimmed and our oil with us. The light cannot exist without our lamp and our wick, without our strength and our wisdom. But neither can it last for longer that the briefest of moments without the oil of our Savior's grace. You can't have a lamp without the wick but a good lamp is mostly burning oil. We can't have our trials without exercising our own faith and effort and understanding, but we will be able to endure the fires that we must face much better when we add to our strength the strength of the Lord and wrap ourselves in the oil of gladness and the tender mercies and the enabling power of our Savior's grace.
