I love to watch fireflies. There are few things that are better than sitting relaxing in a back porch swing on a quiet night looking out across a field full of fireflies that melt into tall valley mountains and then reappear as reflections in the twinkling stars of the brilliant night sky. Better still to look out across a pond as the reflections are mirrored off of the calm surface of the water and seemingly cast up into those very same skies. I can remember as a child waiting earnestly for those warmer summer nights and finding so much excitement in seeing the first firefly shine its light out over the fields below our home. Soon those fields would be filled with the little lights, dancing around the tall grass down between the fencerow trees to the bubbling creek and into the cornfields beyond. I was so blessed to grow up in a place where I could sit on our front porch swing and just enjoy the beauty of it all.
Sitting still, however, did not last long. I was never a child that could sit and watch for long, I had to get out and see and taste and enjoy all that God had so graciously placed me in. As evening would come, the sun would set in all of its blazing majesty over the cornfields, letting the moon, stars and nighttime take hold of my world. As soon as it was dark enough to see the fireflies I would run off of the porch out into those fields to begin and evening of chasing down these curious little lights. It wasn't as easy as it seemed it should have been and it took much skill for my little self to catch up with one of these lights. They blink but it would always seem that just as you were closing in on them the light would go out and then reappear several feet from where you were and the chase would be on again. It was an amazing little dance for a child to take part in and one that I still feel a drawing toward though I am older and more able to just sit and be still and know that He is God.
This dance was rewarded often with my small hand gently wrapped around one of these strange little bugs. There was laughter as the little legs tickled my palm and there was always a bit of fear not knowing if harm would come from holding this little creature in my hand. The best part though was the light, that calm yellow glow would shine out from between my fingertips as the firefly continued to shine away within my clenched hand. Soon us kids would work together and gather as many fireflies as we could and fill up a peanut butter jar or bug barn that our mother had given us. It was like creating our own little lantern and we would work, until it was time to go in for evening prayers and bedtime, to fill our jar as full of the little lights as we could. We would also, as our grandmother had taught us, take the fireflies and squish them on our hands and faces creating little glowing lines that always seemed to take you into some mystical world. I must admit now that the thought of squishing one on my face or hand makes me cringe and my stomach curl; however as a little child it was something that I loved to do.
Lightning bugs are truly amazing little creatures. God placed special organs in their abdomens that combine a special chemical with oxygen to make that gentle yellow glow we are all so familiar with. Scientists still don’t know how the lightning bugs control this reaction to produce the complex series of flashes that they use to communicate with each other. It is especially amazing to note that each species of firefly has its own unique pattern of flashes. Some have a solid glow while others emit erratic flashes, and yet all of the fireflies are able to tell which flash belongs to their species. Only God could have designed such a unique creature that uses the darkness of night and the special ability that God has given it to communicate so perfectly with each other.
Now are we so different from the firefly. We live in a world of darkness; darkness created when people exchanged the truth of God for a lie and began to live for themselves. Throughout history God has been trying to give light back to us. The bible is filled with stories of people who turned from the lies of this world and its prince of darkness and became the lights of God. The children of Israel were to be a beacon that burned brightly for the entire world to see but that light was at best manifest as brief flashes that quickly died away as the people turned back to the lies. Then God sent His son into this world in order to once again make the light of God available to each and every person who he had created. Just as the firefly has to take in oxygen and combine it with the chemicals in its abdomen to make its light so we have to open our lives up to Christ and allow Him to fill us and allow His life to combine totally with ours so that we can shine as lights in this darkened world. Just as it is a mystery to scientist how exactly the lightning bug controls its light so it is a deep mystery how the life of Christ can come into our life and set us afire for God.
It seems like such a simple analogy; fireflies are lights in the darkness and so we are to be lights in the darkness, and it may be. However, only the analogy is simple, the truth that is represents is the greatest mystery known to men. How can God turn us into lights in the darkness? How could the death of His son open up to us the relationship that it takes to truly make us lights? What does it mean to truly be a light for Christ? What kind of life are we to live now? Most of all how in the world can the God of the universe live inside of me, allowing my life to become so mixed with His that I could also be called a son of His, and how could I, knowing that God dwells within me, hold that light inside and not let it shine out into the darkness all around me. Those questions provide plenty of food for thought and meditation as I sit and stare out across a beautiful valley filled with fireflies.
I will close with one of my favorite quotes, it was spoken by Jim Elliot, a man who truly learned in His short life how to carry God’s light into the world.
"He makes His ministers a flame of fire, "Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of 'other things.' Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this my soul—short life? In me, there dwells the spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God's house consumed Him."
