My sister Jay and her husband, Rob, have a sailboat and on any breezy, beautiful Spring sunshiny day you’ll often see them loading up the boat, lifting anchor, and they’ll sail out onto the Chesapeake Bay. Sometimes they will sail over to St. Michaels or Oxford, on the eastern shore of Maryland, or sometimes they’ll cruise down to Calvert Cliffs or up to the inner harbor of Baltimore. They love sailing and Jay has become adept using navigational charts.
And those charts come in handy even in familiar waters such as the Chesapeake or on the back inlet off the Severn River where they dock their boat. At the end of an afternoon on the bay, when they turn back up the Severn toward home, Jay and Rob, as the sun begins to set and it get darker, will watch closely for channel markers – those channel markers indicate where the water is deep enough for a boat to safely pass.
If they are sailing home in the evening, those channel markers are actually little green and small blinky red lights. My sister shared how the lights on a couple of channel markers once went out, and their boat hit a sandbar. No fun getting stuck, she said. So those little green and red lights – they’re called the lower lights – are pretty important. Because safety is not only a big rule when sailing on the water, but safety is a key issue in life, especially when it’s dark and when we can’t always easily see dangers that lurk under the surface of things.
It reminds me of that old analogy of how God is the lighthouse, the greater light, and we are His little channel markers; those little green and red lower lights. In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus puts on us a very solemn responsibility. It’s a responsibility for the spiritual well-being, the safety of others, whether they be Christians or non-believers. Because Jesus charges us – you and me – he says that we are the light of the world and that we are to let our light shine before men. When we do, we point the way. We warn people of hidden dangers in this life, of things that folks can’t see with their natural eye. As lower lights, we also show others where the safe harbor is, right? Like that old hymn my daddy used to sing, “Let the lower lights keep burning, send the beam across the way… some poor fainting, struggling seaman, you may rescue, you may save.”
So, friend, today be reminded of the solemn charge Jesus has given you. He who once said “I am the light of the world,” now turns to you today and says, “You are the light of the world.” So please stir the fires of the spirit within you; get them burning bright, keep your light burning. It’s a dark, scary world out there filled with more dangers than most people are even aware of. Shine your light. Mark the channel; show where the safe harbor is because there are many who need to know Jesus is the way.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
© Joni and Friends