God’s Lighthouse

Derl G. Keefer

 

“The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” 

Matthew 4:16 NLT

 

Growing up in Missouri and Kansas during my youth and attending college in Oklahoma did little for my appreciation for lighthouses. However, moving to Michigan to pastor soon turned my attention to lighthouses and birthed my fascination for these beautiful legacies of safety from the past. I have explored several over the years and always feel awed by the prominence of their size and history. We Americans and Canadians think of lighthouses that line our shores, but the truth is that some of the most elaborate lighthouses were built thousands of years ago in Asia. In her book, A Beacon of Hope, Ellyn Sanna relates that the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and known as the Pharos of Alexandria, is said to have been the world’s first lighthouse. It was commissioned by Ptolemy, the Macedonian ruler of Egypt, and built on a site three hundred years before the birth of Jesus.  It was made in three square sections, reached a total height of 450 feet and measured 360 feet on each side!  If you were a sailor and out of the pitch blackness you saw what appeared to be an intense ball of blazing fire on the horizon, what would you think?  Unlit by electricity the Lighthouse of Alexandria guided mariners to safety for fifteen hundred years with its light visible from a distance of a hundred miles.  Today we live in a world that appears as pitch black as what the ancient mariners experienced so long ago—with suicide bombings, tribal warfare, nuclear threats, murder, hatred, a culture out of control and more. It almost brings one to the brink of despair, but we, too, have a most powerful Lighthouse that has a stronger lens and reaches further than any lighthouse in the world, from two thousand years ago to today!  God can turn the blackest night into light from any shore. He will illuminate your nights. No matter how far you are from the shore or how far you have traveled, his light is still visible and beams brightly from shore to shore—just for you!

 

“Father of Light, you know how lost we sometimes can be in this world of disorder, duress and darkness.  Help us look for the Light and follow its beam to the shore of safety.  As we travel with fellow spiritual mariners may we become beacons of light to those seeking help and comfort from the chilly waters of life that are hopelessly in need of direction!  May the Light change our direction from destruction to salvation, now and forever.  Amen.”