The Greater Light: A Childhood Story of Faith and God’s Love

As a child, summer days meant tent-camping with my family among the sand dunes of the Delaware Shore. At night, we would make our campfire by the ocean and sing hymns. My daddy would always be sure to sing his favorite:

“Brightly beams our Father’s mercies 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!

Some poor fainting, struggling seaman you may rescue, you may save.” 

(From “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning” P.P. Bliss, 1871)

After the campfire, we’d trudge back over the barrier dune on the way to our tents. One time my daddy and I paused at the top of the big sand dune. To the south we could see the searchlight of the Fenwick Island lighthouse and straight ahead, there was the Indian River Bay and on it… blinking lights. My father pointed as a red light on the bay blinked on and then a green one did the same. “Those are the lower lights,” he told me. “Channel markers show sailors where the water is deep enough for a boat to safely pass.”

I remember asking him if that was why we were called lower lights. That’s when my daddy motioned toward the lighthouse on Fenwick Island and explained that God is the big lighthouse, and as lower lights—or channel markers—we point the way.

We show people where there is danger, where it’s okay to go, and where the safe harbor is.

Then he said to me, “You should be like that, Joni. Like it says in the Bible, ‘Let your light so shine before men.’” Then we slid down the other side of the dune and walked the rest of the way to our tent. 

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

It was just one of those little lessons that pass quickly, but I remember it to this day, so vivid and crystal-clear: God is the greater light, and as lesser lights, we should illuminate the way for others.

The memory of that discussion served as inspiration for an oil painting I rendered in the 1990s, a few years after my daddy passed away. I began with a large canvas because I wanted to capture a wide, expansive ocean view with skies and waves that seem to go on forever. With broad brushes, I captured a sweeping, magnificent sunset, and on the cliff overlooking the brooding sea, I painted a lighthouse. Lighthouses along the eastern seaboard have always been to me a picture of strength and safety. I wanted mine to appear the same.

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? (Psalm 27:1, ESV).

For a year I worked on this painting, taking time to study and practice painting the different angles of light. It was so important to me to capture the light faithfully, like the way sunlight passes through the curl of the breaking waves, backlighting them, and giving them an iridescent glow. While this painting shows no “lower lights” or channel markers, it still reminds me of the lesson my father taught me about letting my light shine…

and that God always, always is the greater light, guiding us with his Word to find safe harbor in him.

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path (Psalm 119:105).

–Joni Eareckson Tada