Having lived near the coast of North Carolina for close to a decade allowed my wife and I the opportunity to be near our favorite place, the ocean, and also in proximity to those beautiful structures so often found near our country’s seas and inland waterways – lighthouses.

What is the purpose of a lighthouse? We all know that lighthouses serve as a navigational guide and a warning for boats and ships to stay clear of dangerous shoals, rocks, and currents. During the day, the sailors can see the lighthouses by their unique markings, called Daymarks. For example, here on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the Bodie Island Lighthouse has horizontal black and white markings, Cape Hatteras Lighthouse has candy-stripe black and white markings, Cape Lookout Lighthouse has black and white diamonds, and the Ocracoke Lighthouse is all white. At night, or in fog and bad weather, the sailors are guided by the light that acts as a beacon, keeping ships clear of shallow or treacherous waters.

But did you know that some lighthouses also act as a welcoming marker for sailors and boats. While the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse protects ships from one of the most hazardous sections of the Atlantic Coast, known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” the Ocracoke Lighthouse serves to guide sailors and boats from the Pamlico Sound into Silver Lake, almost saying to them, “Come on in.”

O LORD, you give me light; you dispel my darkness Psalm 18:28, GNT).

Once again Jesus spoke to the people. This time he said, “I am the light for the world! Follow me, and you won’t be walking in the dark. You will have the light that gives life” (John 8:12, CEV).

Just as it is with lighthouses, we have a God who also is both a warning light and a welcoming light. One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to warn us about the pitfalls that could potentially cause us to stumble in our lives. You know that feeling you get, the one that says “beware” or “stay clear,” or that thing in your conscience that tells you what is right and wrong, that is the Holy Spirit warning you. John 16:13 tells us that the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth.

And God always welcomes us into His presence, regardless of where we have been, or what we have done. He invites you in for the first time, and he invites you back time and time again. Revelation 22:17 talks of God’s invitation to come to Him without cost.

Just a ship follows a light to ensure safe passage, we too need to rely on God’s Word to guide us through the enlightening of the Holy Spirit.

So, today, I encourage you to allow God to be your lighthouse. Let Him be the Light that warns you of rough and dangerous seas and let that same Light welcome you into safe waters of the calm, peaceful, and tranquil lake.

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If you are like me, you want the things you do to be without much impediment or difficulty. A walk in the park – no growling dogs chasing you. An easy ride – the fewer potholes and detours that you encounter, the better. A calm flight – no eddies of rough air. Smooth sailing – peaceful waters, free of big waves and strong winds. However, life is anything but a walk in the park, an easy ride, a calm flight, or smooth sailing. Yes, there are many times when all goes as planned, times we are thankful for, but there are also plenty of times when we will have dogs chasing us, potholes that rattle our bones, detours to take us off course, sometimes into the unknown, turbulence that bounces us around, waters and winds that threaten to capsize our boat.   

Following God’s perfect plan for your life isn’t always smooth either. It is a different way of doing life. Yes, among many good things, there will be unexplainable peace (John 14:27); safety in the storm and from the storm (Nahum 1:7); overflowing joy (Psalm 4:7); provision, protection, preservation (Psalm 23); and fullness of life (John 10:10). But there will also be tall mountains to climb, deep valleys to ride through, narrow rickety bridges high above the ground to cross, storms that will “rain on your parade,” hot dry deserts that will leave you parched, and raging rivers ready to drown you. Sometimes you will need to zipline through the trees, not always sure where the line is taking you. It is a different way of doing life.

You will likely have more questions than answers. God often works in ways that just do not make sense. He asked Isaiah to walk naked for three years (Isaiah 20:1-3). Instead of quickly and decisively attacking Jericho, God told Joshua and the Israelites to walk around the city for a week (Joshua 6:1-4). In Genesis, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers (37:26-28) and later on, imprisoned by Potiphar on trumped up charges (39:1-20).

You will be asked to run when you just want to walk. There will be rest stops when you really don’t want to rest, detours that seem out of the way. And there will be times when you want to sing “Thanks for the advice, but I’ll do it my way.”

We find these words in Proverbs 3:5-6 – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the Lord in everything you do, and he will show you the right way” (GNT).

So, today I ask you – Do you trust God enough to follow His plan, His path, in every situation, even when it doesn’t make sense or looks too difficult? God promises to be with you in it all. The name given to Jesus – Immanuel – means “God with us.” (Matthew 1:23, which fulfills prophecy found in Isaiah 7:14.)

Ask God today for the gift of ever-increasing faith so He can put new lyrics in your heart; lyrics that sing, “God, I’ll do it Your way!” It is a different way of doing life.

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Have you ever been through a season of life where “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all?” seems to sum it up best? Every day is a fight, and by the time you fall into bed at night you feel bloodied and bruised, like you were in the ring getting pounded for twelve rounds by Muhammad Ali, generally considered the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. Ali ended his professional career with a record of 56 wins and only five losses, with three of those losses coming in his final four fights. Who can forget the 1975 “Thrilla in Manila,” the third and final fight against Joe Frazier, in which Ali won by a technical knockout to retain the heavyweight championship of the world. Ali’s professional career ended on December 11, 1981, with a unanimous decision loss to Trevor Berbick. 

Everywhere you turn, you are swimming against the current. Maybe as you look out over the horizon of your life, all you see is barren wasteland. You feel parched and dry, no cool water is in sight, and you just haven’t seen any new green growth in a long long time. Or it could be that it feels like you are free falling and there is no safety net to catch you before you splat on the macadam below.

No matter how you choose to describe it, there are times when life just seems to be a constant uphill battle. You wonder where God is in all this. You wonder why He allows all this “bad” stuff to happen. The Bible calls us to praise God in all things (1 Ths 5:18; Eph 5:20), but you have a hard time finding anything to praise Him for. What can God possibly be doing? Has He forgotten you?

Let us turn to some words found in Psalm 66 that might shed some light on what God is doing in the midst of your ongoing struggles. In vv.10-12 of Psalm 66 we read, “For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.”

The psalmist seems to be praising God for allowing so many bad things to happen to him. What’s up with that? The psalmist knows the truth of God using pain and suffering, hardships and struggles, to refine you into precious silver. Just maybe God is allowing what you seem to face on a daily basis so that He can re-tool and re-manufacture you into something beautiful. The verses from Psalm 66 tell us just that; “For you, God, tested us and refined us like silver.” And look once again at how that passage ends – “but you brought us to a place of abundance.”

The refining of silver, called smelting, involves heating the ore to its melting point of 1763 degrees Fahrenheit in order to separate the pure (base) metal from the impurities. God desires to do the same: often using the heat of life to purify us.

When life hems you in (prison), when pressures mount (burdens), when you’ve been unfairly treated (ride over you), and when one hardship comes one after another (fire and water), you can trust that you are never elsewhere than in God’s hand (see John 10:29).

Can you, even if you don’t feel it, praise God and thank Him for His unending love and faithfulness as He refines you like silver and prepares to bring you into a place of abundance?

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One of the things I really enjoy is spending time at the beach. When my wife and I lived in North Carolina, we went to the beach at least once a week. In addition to just sitting under an umbrella and reading, we enjoyed taking long walks, splashing our feet in the water as we walked. On those walks we would take our trusty little blue bucket to hold the shells we would collect. There was no set criteria for the shells we collected; we just knew we “liked” a particular shell when we saw it. We filled our bucket with shells that were pleasing to us, while leaving the broken and shattered pieces lying on the sand.

Today, we have glass container after glass container of shells in our house. When we moved, our kids helped us, and they soon got tired of lifting so many boxes filled with shells.

There is much similarity between those broken shells and how the world views each of us. We all have defects and imperfections, and while the world often picks us up, looks us over, then throws us back on the pile due to our defects and imperfections,

God does not “select” us based upon our outward appearance. Unlike the broken shells that we left behind, God picks us up from the pile of broken shells. While sometimes He glues our broken pieces back together, other times He uses us with our broken pieces. His plan in both cases is to reach the world with His message of redemption and restoration. God sees more than just our broken pieces, more than our flaws, He sees us as He made us. He sees us in His image (see Genesis 1:27).

If you know the story of David in the Old Testament, you know that he was not a likely candidate to be anointed the next king after Saul. David was the youngest of Jesse’s eight sons and just a scrawny little kid. God chose Samuel to pick the next king so as Samuel looked over Jesse’s sons, he saw Eliab who was the biggest and strongest, and based upon Eliab’s physical appearance, Samuel figured Eliab was next to be king. But God spoke to Samuel and gave him a new standard by which to pick the next king.

In 1 Samuel 16:7 we read these words – “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.’”

What is today’s message? Maybe you feel ignored or overlooked, just like those broken shells that we left lying on the beach. You feel like the kid who never gets picked to be on the kickball team. Or maybe you look back at your life and say to yourself – I have really blown it, I have too many broken pieces and I am beyond repair.

The good news is that God sees perfection in all of us and he does not just collect the unblemished shells, he also collects the ones that others have left lying on the sand. He works in our lives to redeem and restore all that is broken. God picks you up and puts you in His bucket as He walks the beach. He sees past the blemishes, the broken pieces, and the cracks. He sees what could be, not what is!

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Do you have some irritation that just won’t go away? The proverbial “thorn in your side.” That someone or something that continually causes problems for you. A source of constant irritation. It is painful and distracting. It holds you back. It is harmful but not deadly. Think of the pain you get from being jabbed by the thorn of a rose. It draws blood but not to the point of incapacitating you.

The phrase “thorn in your side” appears several places in the Bible. In Numbers 33:55 we find – “But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.” Similarly – “So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you” (Judges 2:3).

The apostle Paul talked of having a thorn. In the beginning verses of 2 Corinthians 12 (in context, vv.1-10) he tells us of an affliction, the precise nature of it we do not know. Paul pleaded with God, but his “thorn” remained, with God speaking these words in response – “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (12:9). It is out of this ongoing discomfort that Paul penned these well-known words – “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (12:10).

Now let’s consider pearls. Pearls are beautiful and a much sought after gemstone. Natural pearls come from oysters and mussels. They begin due to an irritant, a thorn in its side, so to speak. They are the mollusk’s natural defense against some particle that has entered its shell. This irritant gets trapped and becomes the nucleus of the pearl. It gets coated with layer upon layer of a carbonite material (nacre) that is strong and iridescent. Over time, these layers of nacre form a pearl, often taking years to develop fully. A pearl of great value. A pearl that begins simply as an irritant to the mollusk. A pearl that comes at a great price to the mollusk, usually its death.

Pearls are beautiful and of great value. They are the result of suffering, from some irritant, from some thorn. True faith is beautiful and of great value. Jesus talks of faith as being like a pearl. He often taught using parables. In Matthew 13, Jesus paired up two parables – hidden treasure found in a field (13:44) and the finding of a pearl of great value (13:45-46). Both of these parables deal with the supreme worth of the kingdom of heaven. And both parables point to the great sacrifice required to gain such great value.

Following Jesus in this fallen and very damaged world comes at a great price. You will be pricked and prodded. There will be thorns in your side. There will be constant irritants rubbing against you. But like the mollusk, whatever the irritant is, your natural defense against it is to coat it with layers and layers of the strong and beautiful kingdom of God.

This kingdom is so valuable that no cost, no irritant, no thorn in the side, is too great of a price to pay. Do you treasure God’s kingdom more than everything else. The pearl is worth the price!

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Have you ever been hiking and found yourself lost? Maybe you intentionally veered off the path, hoping to explore the deepest parts of the forest. And since you’ve been on this path many times before you are certain you can find your way back out without getting lost. Or it could be you thought you were following the intended path, only to realize you somehow got off that path and now you find yourself far from where you want to be. You are in very unfamiliar territory.

In either situation, being lost, all alone, and off the marked path leads to worry, confusion and panic, maybe even hopelessness. Foolishly, you left your compass in the car. What’s that noise rustling in the leaves? Is that a bear I hear off in the distance? Oh no, this deep in the woods, no cell service! You begin trying to retrace your steps but soon realize that you’ve passed the same rock more than once. You seem to be getting nowhere fast and begin to wonder if you will get out safely.

As an experienced hiker you know it is ill-advised to hike alone and without your trusty compass, but since you hiked these woods hundreds of times, you had confidence in your own abilities rather than relying on the navigational tools available to you. You are angry with yourself for being so foolish. However, at this moment your only thoughts are on getting back out of the woods.

In life we sometimes find ourselves lost and off the chosen path. I have been there and so have you. That is just the reality of our sinful nature. Simply put, we strayed from God. It could be we willingly chose a different path, our own path, or it could be we somehow drifted there, little by little, almost unnoticed, until we found ourselves some place we did not want to be.

The prophet Jeremiah gave instructions to the nation of Judah, who had strayed from the Lord to make their own way. These same instructions apply to you and to me today. Here is what we read in Jeremiah 6:16 – “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.’”

So, right now, if you are lost or uncertain, rather than keep wandering, hoping to find daylight, stop right where you are, admit that you are lost. Repent (turn towards God), and trust Him, your good and trusty compass, to show you His way. It might not be the easiest way, but it will be the best way!

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