Lighthouses have been in existence since about 300 BC when The Lighthouse of Alexandria was constructed in Egypt. It was the height of a 45 story building.
One of the first Lighthouses in America was built on Little Brewster Island bear Boston, in 1716. It was damaged during the Revolutionary War, rebuilt in 1783….it still stands today.
One of the most attractive Lighthouses in the world is the Lighthouse of Genoa….in Spain. Built in 1543, it still stands today, as do many of these structures.
Lighthouses are constructed on or near coasts to provide guidance and serve as a warning for sea going vessels.
One can tour Lighthouses across our country, there are about a thousand in the US. Michigan has 150 lighthouses as much of the state borders water.
Lighthouses are of various sizes, shapes and colors.
The Lighthouse of Aveiro, in Portugal looks like a barbershop pole.
The Lighthouse on Cape Hatteras, in Nort Carolina is white with a green stripe.
While most lighthouses are tall and narrow, the Burnt Island Lighthouse in Maine looks short and squatty.
It is easy to understand why Lighthouses were built and why so many still stand after centuries.
Built near shorelines they gave light and showed safe passage for ships. Being near the shore they had to be built sturdy to withstand the storms so often present on any coast.
The most important and singular reason a Lighthouse was ever built was and is to provide Light in darkness.
The Light reveals dangerous formations of rocks which could damage and sink any vessel at sea.
That same Light shows not merely the danger present but the safety available in the correct passages.
If one looks at most any definition of the purpose for Lighthouses, it is to provide Light.
The Light shows a way.
Not the house.
The house is the structure from which the LIGHT eminates.
That is the purpose of the structure….to eminate the LIGHT placed within it.
Without the illuminated LIGHT, the structure is just an assortment of bricks nicely arranged near a shoreline.
Secondarily, the Lighthouse can supply another service.
If fog is present so heavily the LIGHT cannot be viewed, then traditional LIGHTHOUSES had very loud “fog-horns” to provide warning.
If you finished the second grade then you understand where this is going.
You are a structure
placed in an important location
to provide illumination from a Source placed within you,
from a LIGHT placed within you.
That Light is not you
You have been filled with that LIGHT and are supposed to allow IT to be revealed
through the window of your life.
This LIGHT affects lives around you to the positive.
In other circumstances you are to sound an alarm
from a Source within you.
The LIGHT is to be projected out toward those vessels which float into and through your life…
IT is the physical and spiritual reflection of the Power of Christ within you.
No sound is present.
Just a revelatory Presence.
The warning sound is the projection of your voice from the Presence of Christ always aware and awake to guide and direct.
All these words go to say that ….
YOU are a LIGHTHOUSE.
Allow the LIGHT to be revealed.
Shine it for all to see the danger and the safety present…from the Power within you.
You were built to Shine That LIGHT.
Allow the sounded warnings.
Speak when that Presence moves you to do so.
Be more than a simple structure standing by with no more value than to be glanced at in passing.
Terry Bethea 