On Friday the 13th of January, 2012, the cruise ship Costa Concordia sunk at night right next to Italy's coastline. Lives were lost. (As of this post 16 people are dead of drowning and 16 are still missing.)
The captain of the modern day luxury liner was accused of being a coward for abandoning his ship while his passengers were still trying to get into lifeboats. Many eyewitnesses testify that the tragedy was totally preventable. Seems the captain and his piloting crew seriously lost focus. Concentration was somehow compromised.
I didn't fully understand the sadness of what happened until I went online searching for photos of the disaster. The cruise ship ran onto the rocks right in the very beam of a lighthouse. Heart-wrenching, indeed!
(See a photo of the sinking ship and lighthouse > ).
Seeing the photo of the ship sinking in the glow of the lighthouse gave me a spiritual parallel immediately. Sadly, many drowning souls today are in the vicinity of Jesus, The Lighthouse, but they have lost focus. Yes tragically concentration has somehow been compromised by the seduction of sin, and the payoff of sin is death.
Could anything be sadder than to drown in the beam of a beacon of hope? God forbid!
This is why people are condemned: The light came into the world. Yet, people loved the dark rather than the light because their actions were evil. -- John 3:19 (GWT)
Let's Live in the Light, Not Die In The Light!
Grateful
Showing posts with label lighthouse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lighthouse. Show all posts
Friday, January 27, 2012
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Keepers of The Lighthouses
A friend of mine, Keith D., found the words in italics below on a page of a book titled, "Leaves of Gold". He sent the words to me because our local church's annual men's retreat to The Outer Banks of North Carolina (now in its seventeenth year) is called "Keepers of the Light". Being raised along the coastline, it's a moving piece of literature for my heart, mind, and soul:
Keepers of the lighthouses do not launch any ships, it is true, but they keep many a good ship from going to wreck. The light shines farther than keepers of the light can see, and brightest when they cannot see at all. Two things they have to remember -- to keep the light burning, and never to get in between the light and the darkness they've been set to lighten.
You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. -- Words of Jesus in Matthew 5:14 (NIV)
Lord, I want to be a keeper of Your Light, that is, I want to keep the light of Your Hope that burns within me shining at all times. Also, help me not to block out the light, lest those lost in sin's dark night would not see the shine of Your Presence and tragically not find their way Home to You. In Jesus's name. Amen.
Be Light. Go Shine.
Grateful
Keepers of the lighthouses do not launch any ships, it is true, but they keep many a good ship from going to wreck. The light shines farther than keepers of the light can see, and brightest when they cannot see at all. Two things they have to remember -- to keep the light burning, and never to get in between the light and the darkness they've been set to lighten.
You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. -- Words of Jesus in Matthew 5:14 (NIV)
Lord, I want to be a keeper of Your Light, that is, I want to keep the light of Your Hope that burns within me shining at all times. Also, help me not to block out the light, lest those lost in sin's dark night would not see the shine of Your Presence and tragically not find their way Home to You. In Jesus's name. Amen.
Be Light. Go Shine.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Keepers of the Light
Each Spring, our local church Keepers of the Light Men's Retreat journeys from Virginia's Shenandoah Valley to North Carolina's Outer Banks for three full days of soul inspiration. Our first stop along the Carolina Coastline is always at the Chicamacomico Lifesaving Station Historical Site in Rodanthe. Indescribable!
On one of the walls in the old boat house, the words of a beloved hymn of the church are wood-burned on an old cedar shingle. The words are from the 1871 hymn by Philip P. Bliss titled Let the Lower Lights Be Burning. With 75 to 100 men and boys crammed in the old boat house, the inspiration truly begins when through tear-lined eyes, we fill the rafters with the sacred singing of these old lifesaving lyrics:
Brightly beams our Father’s mercy from His lighthouse evermore,
But to us He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore.
Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave!
For to us He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore.
[or Some poor struggling, sinking sailor you may rescue, you may save.
Dark the night of sin has settled, loud the angry billows roar;
Eager eyes are watching, longing, for the lights, along the shore.
Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave!
Eager eyes are watching, longing, for the lights, along the shore.
Trim your feeble lamp, my brother, some poor sailor tempest tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor, in the darkness may be lost.
Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave!
Trying now to make the harbor, some poor sailor may be lost.
IF MY PEOPLE... WILL? I WILL! God's Promise in 2 Chron. 7:14.
Grateful
On one of the walls in the old boat house, the words of a beloved hymn of the church are wood-burned on an old cedar shingle. The words are from the 1871 hymn by Philip P. Bliss titled Let the Lower Lights Be Burning. With 75 to 100 men and boys crammed in the old boat house, the inspiration truly begins when through tear-lined eyes, we fill the rafters with the sacred singing of these old lifesaving lyrics:
Brightly beams our Father’s mercy from His lighthouse evermore,
But to us He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore.
Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave!
For to us He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore.
[or Some poor struggling, sinking sailor you may rescue, you may save.
Dark the night of sin has settled, loud the angry billows roar;
Eager eyes are watching, longing, for the lights, along the shore.
Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave!
Eager eyes are watching, longing, for the lights, along the shore.
Trim your feeble lamp, my brother, some poor sailor tempest tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor, in the darkness may be lost.
Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave!
Trying now to make the harbor, some poor sailor may be lost.
IF MY PEOPLE... WILL? I WILL! God's Promise in 2 Chron. 7:14.
Grateful
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