Pastoral Ponderings—Lightning Bugs
When I stepped outside earlier this week before heading up to bed to get a breath of fresh air and to bask in the glory of God’s evening blessings, I noticed an abundance of lightning bugs floating around for the first time this year! I’ve always loved lightning bugs, and was SO pleasantly surprised to have SO MANY at our property across the summer last year! A couple of the times little Wesley was over when Kaz was still with us before heading overseas, Wesley and Kaz were running all over the yard chasing after, and occasionally catching the little critters—it was such a great thing to see!
They’re not just the coolest bugs God ever invented– the science that makes them glow makes me think God was just having a wonderful time creating secret living parables that would take thousands of years before people learned enough about them to see the treasures of God’s light through them. Kind of like the “easter egg” surprises hidden in video games for those who look hard enough!
I know I’ve written about the bioluminescence that makes them glow before, so this may sound familiar: The body chemistry that God made in these bugs and a whole class of other bioluminescent creatures and plants, makes them literally glow from the inside out, sometimes pulsing like with these beauties, other times more steady. In a lot of these kinds of critters or plants, the glow is either a part of their reproduction or their feeding, attracting others with the glow. Isn’t that such an awesome parable for when WE glow from the inside out? Our very lives, once we discover the love of God, were designed to be bioluminescent, to draw others to us, so we can share that love of Jesus with others—both for spiritual reproduction, and to feed our own souls! And as with Wesley and Kaz, and likely all of us growing up chasing lighting bugs, it’s no chore to be inspired by the bioluminescent glow, but a wonderful joy to chase and share the light that God put inside of them and inside of us as well!
God calls ALL of us who follow Jesus to be bioluminescent as well, to let your little light shine! An old VBS song from the Lighthouse Kids package some twenty years ago put it so well “From the inside out, there’s no doubt I’m shining for the Lord… I’m a little twinkle in God’s big eye, shining with a light that will never die! From the inside out, there’s no doubt I’m shining for the Lord!”
Let the twinkle of God’s light that is the spark God put inside you, make you the lighthouse for those certain someones whom you might not even know, who God put you on this earth to bring the light to! “Keep on shining for the Lord!”
Rev. Jim