Open in the app
Mid-century illustration of an oil lamp and an open scroll on a table, disciples talking by the sea of Galilee

John 11:10 · World English Bible

John 11:10 Meaning But If a Man Walks

But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light isn’t in him.

Read it in the app

What does John 11:10 mean?

When a mind walks in the dark it falls, and the cause is not outside it but within. Night is the choice to see through fear, and the one who chooses it makes his own obstacles, for the darkness he meets is only the guilt he has not laid down.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

John 11:10 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

When a mind walks in the dark it falls, and the cause is not outside it but within. Night is the choice to see through fear, and the one who chooses it makes his own obstacles, for the darkness he meets is only the guilt he has not laid down. Nothing in the road has changed. The traveler stumbles because he has put out his own light and now takes his shadow for a wall.

What seems to trip him is the mind's projection, its guilt cast outward and mistaken for a danger on the path. Restore the light and the wall dissolves, for it was never there. The remedy is not a safer road but a change of teacher, from fear back to love.

Night: the state of mind that perceives through fear, the darkness in which the mind meets its own guilt as though it came from without.

Christian Psychology lensGo deeper in the app

Christian Psychology lens

Live John 11:10 today

  1. When you reread a message today and it sounds cold, check the tone you supplied. Most of the time the chill was yours, not theirs.
  2. Before you decide somebody is against you, ask them one plain question about what they meant. You will be surprised how often the snake is a rope.
  3. When you feel the wall go up in traffic or in a hard meeting, do not look for a better road. Look at what you brought with you, and set that down first.

Which thing I am afraid of today did I build myself?

The same truth in other traditions

Dhammapada 1

Mind comes first. Act out of a clouded mind and the trouble follows you like a cart behind an ox.

Advaita Vedanta

In the dark a man flinches from a rope and swears it is a snake. Bring a light and nothing has changed but his fear.

Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius

Take away your own opinion that you have been harmed, and the harm goes with it.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

Free · No account needed

Read all of John 11 through 17 lenses

Lensightful opens every verse of the Bible through the traditions you choose. Save readings, ask a follow-up question, and get one verse a day.

Get Lensightful on the App Store