Buzz Off

As I sat down today for my morning coffee, I heard a familiar and annoying sound. Nothing too bombastic. Just a little buzz, really, but it was enough to make my nocturnally hazed mind go mad. I don’t enjoy it when my morning time is interrupted. By anything.  

In our home there are just a few unspoken rules. I wake up first and prepare the coffee. I then go and place coffee on the bedside table beside my wife, and I let her wake at her own pace. I then prepare my cup of coffee and retreat to the living room for a moment of solace. Bethany is like an unfolding flower, and I am like a Jack-In-The-Box. This morning routine and the Holy Spirit have been the glue to a healthy marriage for 20 years.

Back to the buzz. As I sat down to pull out my Bible, the buzz became frantic. There was a fly the size of Godzilla in my lampshade, and the foolish fly kept battering the bulb and shade, convinced it was making some type of progress. I sat there and watched the fly for several minutes, wondering what possessed the fly to keep doing the same thing if it yielded the same result. This was a genuine inquiry in my ever-wondering mind. I confess, I put down my Bible and grabbed my phone. Based on limited research, I discovered that flies use the sun to orient their flight patterns. This poor fly thought the lamp was the sun, but it wasn’t. Its confusion rendered it in a perpetual state of disorientation. 

There are some similarities between my life and that pea-brained fly. In some ways, the fly might be better off. At least it didn’t realize what it was doing. I know that my life is designed to be oriented in a certain way. Think about the frustrated fly as we consider these profound words in James 1:17-18:

‘Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

For much of humanity’s existence, we have used lights to orient our physical lives. The sun, moon, and stars determined navigation and the way we marked time. They remain the highest fixed points that we can physically see. God, our Father, is the creator of those lights. The ultimate orientation of our lives must be fixed on His character, which is unchanging and never overshadowed. 

When I take my eyes off the Father of lights, I notice that my life is easily oriented around lesser lights. Those “lights” usually entail some desire or thing that doesn’t satisfy, but I keep frantically going after it like somehow it will. It’s exhausting, much like I’m sure the fly experienced. But there is a solution. The Father of lights doesn’t hide in the shadows. He’s ever-present, pouring the very essence of who He is into our lives. It’s there in His presence that we are satisfied. 

If we feel disoriented, perhaps it’s a matter of settling our sight on the Father of lights. What truth do we need to meditate on today? God can do far more in and through a life that is surrendered to Him than a life striving after a lesser light. He’s the Father of lights, and every good and perfect gift is from above.