Only one in a thousand baby sea turtles survive to adulthood. Their dangerous journey begins as soon as they leave the eggs buried in the sand. To get to the ocean, they must run the gauntlet of footprints, crabs, garbage, and other perils on the beach. They also face the threat of predators such as birds and fish.
As the turtles are exposed to these hazards, they still have to find their way to the ocean. They intuitively go towards the light of the ocean. However, if there is another light in the area, it causes disorientation, and the turtles aren’t sure where to go. The manmade light offers chaos and leads them astray.
Light becomes order in the world and takes the chaos out of the darkness by creating a functioning, orderly environment, including the creation of stars that give us seasons and cycles of time that order our lives.
God created light to serve as a boundary to the darkness. Light becomes order in the world and takes the chaos out of the darkness by creating a functioning, orderly environment, including the creation of stars that give us seasons and cycles of time that order our lives. (Genesis 1:2-5, 14)
If someone is walking on the beach with a flashlight or has their cell phone on, the turtle's face chaos and their orderly march to the light is ruined. A light that isn’t what they need deceives them, taking them down the wrong path to probable death.
How often do we follow the deceiving light that is actually darkness? Our flesh has a way of leading us into chaos, keeping us from following the one light we need.
I have really been working on my self-control lately. My word for 2022 is discipline, and I simply cannot be disciplined without the fruit of self-control. I’m quite amazed at myself and how creative I can be with excuses for why I can’t control so many things; time management, spending, attention to detail, and so much more.
Our excuses are just a deception, a light that disorients us and sends us in the wrong direction. The world tells us we need to have the latest and greatest gadget, shoes, or notebooks, so it’s ok to spend that money. Our flesh tells us just to be who we are, allowing us to live in selfishness and pride if that’s what is “best” for us.
When we live in God’s light, the true light, we find truth and unity; we are purified in Christ’s blood. (1John1:5-7) His light is the only light that will provide the path to life and eternity. His truth is our path to freedom, joy, grace, and mercy. In that truth, we find the tools to move beyond “me” and share our joy and grace with others; that’s unity! But this can only happen when we accept and declare our salvation through the blood of Jesus.
When we live in God’s light, the true light, we find truth and unity; we are purified in Christ’s blood.
God gave us a world of order through light in His infinite love for us. Sin broke that order, but God still wants that for us. Even though the world offers false lights and chaos, we know the truth. One Light offers us life, and his name is Jesus. (John 8:12)
Baby sea turtles only have their instincts to allow them a life made perfect in God’s orderly universe but are threatened by the flesh of this world. We have the Word of God guiding us as to that beacon of light to the path God intends for us, the one He desires for us out of His great love. Friends, I encourage you to pick up that Bible, the truth that will lead you to a better relationship with Him, to an eternity without chaos.
What do you struggle with in the Bible? Send me a message. I’d love to dive into His Word with you!
Abba, how us your light of order and love. Help us to reflect that order and love to others, so that they see you in us! Amen.
Deep Dive
I love Charles Spurgeon. He offers Biblical truth so honestly and compassionately. His evening devotion from August 31 in Morning and Evening took my breath away. Since he uses 1 John 1:7 for his scripture, I thought it appropriate to share here. (highlights are mine)
“If we walk in the light, as he is in the light.”
—1 John 1:7
As he is in the light! Can we ever attain to this? Shall we ever be able to walk as clearly in the light as he is whom we call “Our Father,” of whom it is written, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all?” Certainly, this is the model which it set before us, for the Saviour himself said, “Be ye perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect;” and although we may feel that we can never rival the perfection of God, yet we are to seek after it, and never to be satisfied until we attain to it. The youthful artist, as he grasps his early pencil, can hardly hope to equal Raphael or Michael Angelo, but still, if he did not have a noble beau ideal before his mind, he would only attain to something very mean and ordinary. But what is meant by the expression that the Christian is to walk in light as God is in the light? We conceive it to import likeness, but not degree. We are as truly in the light, we are as heartily in the light, we are as sincerely in the light, as honestly in the light, though we cannot be there in the same measure. I cannot dwell in the sun, it is too bright a place for my residence, but I can walk in the sun's light; and so, though I cannot attain to that perfection of purity and truth which belongs to the Lord of hosts by nature as the infinitely good, yet I can set the Lord always before me, and strive, by the help of the indwelling Spirit, after conformity to his image. That famous old commentator, John Trapp, says, “We may be in the light as God is in the light for quality, but not for equality.” We are to have the same light, and are as truly to have it and walk in it as God does, though, as for equality with God in his holiness and purity, that must be left until we cross the Jordan and enter into the perfection of the Most High. Mark that the blessings of sacred fellowship and perfect cleansing are bound up with walking in the light.
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).