Who among you fears the LORD?  That is an interesting question.  Do I?  I think so, or at least I hope so!  Not an irrational being afraid of, but an awesome respect for the God that keeps my lungs breathing and my heart pumping without me having to worry about it.  What did Isaiah mean by "fear"?  In the truest sense of the Hebrew word used, that we transliterate to sound yaw-ray' , it means to be morally reverent.  I like that.  It is wise to be morally reverent before God.  
    It is also wise to be obedient to Him, at least the best we know how.  We all have some degree of understanding of how God speaks to us, be it a prompting or still small voice as some call it, or maybe through confirmation of a Bible verse by someone else, or maybe through some circumstance that we understand couldn't have happened without God's hands all over it.  What ever it is, we need to pay attention and obey when He "speaks".

     Everyone walks in darkness to some degree.  If we understand that God is the only light by which we can truly see, and since we rarely understand what He is really doing, then we also must understand that we are more in the dark than we want to admit.  The question Isaiah raises is, what do we do with the darkness - in that season of seemingly no direction or word from the Lord?  Do we pray and wait or attempt to provide some light of our own to walk in?
       I've known many a solid God fearing believer who have decided that the darkness was too much  to bear and lit their own torch.  With the best of intentions saying,"If God isn't going to do something I'm  going to do it myself".  That's very dangerous territory to tread.  Its deceptive because there is an initial feeling that everything is OK as things  seem to fall into place "as expected". There is also the initial relief that there seems to be less darkness because something (anything) is happening.
     But what is really happening is exactly what Isaiah warns - our efforts only ignite sparks, not provide any sort of real light.  If we attempt to do anything outside of God's will and economy those sparks only illuminate  bits and pieces of our own plan and the darkness beyond is still where His plan is which we can't see at all.  
     It isn't until all of our kindled fire is extinguished and we are back in the darkness, in more emotional torment from our own failure than before, that we say,"Wow God, maybe I should have waited on you".

              Maybe we should have!