If June is the month for June bugs, July belongs to the lightning bugs.
Our 4th of July family get-together took place in a back yard that stretched for 30 acres and included lots of fun. As we played egg toss and had water balloon fights after a dinner of grilled burgers and brats, the sun began to set. While we tried to wiggle Oreo cookies from our foreheads to our mouths, lightning bugs dotted the landscape.
And by the time our fireworks were being lit, fireflies competed en masse for our attention. Thousands of them flashed like glitter in the field, God’s holiday backdrop to our not-as-remarkable manmade explosives.
Surely God had fun when he created the lightning bug with its on-and-off glow. He must have known children would delight in his beetle-idea by collecting them in jars and using them as summertime night lights.
Catching them takes special skill, though, since they light up only intermittently and keep flying between flashes. Younger children find them to be elusive, difficult to catch. But a 10 year old knows just what to do: watch for the light, then anticipate where he’ll fly next and where he’ll be when he lights up again. A quick grab and he’s caught.
The light of God’s Word comes to us much the same way. We see a flash of wisdom in one verse and crave another, reading further, hoping to be “in place” when God lights up the next bit. If we’ve been paying attention and are ready, we grab for it and it’s ours to keep.
This year the lightning bugs have been especially prolific. May the light of God’s truth be every bit as abundant.
“Send out your light and your truth; let them guide me.” (Psalm 43:3a)