Here’s a favorite hymn we used to sing around the campfire on the beach.
Brightly beams our Father’s mercy
From His lighthouse evermore,
But to us He gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore
Let the lower lights be burning!
Send a gleam across the wave
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
You may rescue, you may save.
Oh, do I love that hymn! I’m sorry; I’m having to fight back tears here because it so reminds me of my daddy. When he was a young man in the early 1920’s, he served as a sailor in the merchant marines patrolling up and down the waters and inlets of the east coast. My father became very familiar with lighthouses, buoys and channel markers, and I guess that’s why he loved singing this hymn to us, “Let the Lower Lights be Burning.” Earlier this week I shared how we’d go beach camping along the Delaware shore and sit around the campfire singing. After that, my daddy would always share a story or two about shipwrecks and storms. He’d motion toward Indian River inlet on the other side of the big barrier sand dune where we were camped and he’d explain why channel markers along the inland waterways were so important: they mark where there was safe passage. Channel markers would warn you, cautioning you about any sandbar or hidden rocks underneath the surface. And so when we’d sing this hymn, he’d always say to us, his daughters—actually, our cousins too gathered around the fire—he’d say, “Now boys and girls you are the lower lights; you are channel markers telling people where there is safe harbor. Jesus told us that we are the lights of the world. He’s the greater light, but we are His lower lights marking the way.”
My daddy knew what he was talking about; Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5, He said, “You [that’s you listening and me] you are the light of the world.” God is the greater light, and we are the lesser lights: We show the way in the darkness, we dispel fear and uncertainty, our words of encouragement brighten gloomy spirits, and through Scripture we point the way—through God’s Word we direct others to a safe harbor. It’s what lower lights are supposed to do.
I’ve never forgotten those long-ago days, and every summer when there’s talk about beach camping, I find myself thinking back about my daddy and my sisters and cousins, all the family gathered around the campfire on the beach, and singing about the lower lights. I sure do miss those warm, sunlit days, but their memory spurs me on. And in that same spirit, it’s my prayer that, today, you will remember your calling as a lower light. Today point someone the way to safe harbor, would you? And also, today, I'm going to ask God to put a hymn or a worship song on your heart for Ephesians chapter 5, verses19-20 says, “Speak to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.” Find a way to speak the words of a hymn as an encouragement to someone else today. Ask the Lord to put a spiritual song in your heart then take those words and use them to brighten the spirits of others around you: jot a note, write a card, and in so doing, lighten the way and brighten their path because you are the lower light.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
© Joni and Friends