Life's a Beach
Can you believe it?! I’m at the beach in February …. AH-H-H-H-H!!
(That was a happy scream in case you were wondering!)
What is it about the beach and me?
At the beach, I have definitely found my “happy place”. The beach is the place where I often hear the voice of God clearly and miraculously speak to me from the thunder of the waves and the beautiful longing of the sunset.
So … today … in honor of the “Winter of 2014” … I thought that I would share with you some lessons from the beach!
1 – My life is so small.
As I walk along the beach every afternoon, I feel so small in comparison to it all. I don’t feel insignificant … just small.
My footprints are quickly washed away with the rush of a single wave.
No one knows my name at the beach … I am one of hundreds who walk obscurely.
The ocean is splendid and vast … all I can see for mile after ocean mile is the emerald blue of relentless waves topped off by marshmallow puffs of white. It ends only when it meets the horizon.
The horizon is within my human view … I can reach out and touch it with my eyes. The place where the ocean joins with the atmosphere of earth is hundreds of miles away … and yet I can see it.
The beach is so magnificent and I am so ordinary.
In this culture of “me first” in which we live, the fact that I live a small life may seem disrespectful and initially ignoble. But it’s not. A small life does not always translate into unimportance. It just means that there will always be something grander … someone more fluent and famous … certain life goals that may never be reached or attained.
My life is a small life.
Don’t misunderstand what I am trying to say … it’s not that I am nothing. It’s just that He is the Something to Whom this small person joyously submits and answers. What a wonderful realization that the world doesn’t revolve around me and my problems … but around Him and His promises!
That’s why I cling to Him especially at the beach. He is the only One Who can give my life meaning and purpose. He created me and He created the waves. I am more valuable to Him than the seagulls that sore and the sand that sparkles like a million little diamonds in the afternoon sunset.
“My days are like a lengthened shadow, and I wither away like grass. But You, O Lord, abide forever, and Your name to all generations.” – Psalm 102:11 & 12
2 – My life is so significant.
The waves never stop rolling … the birds never stop diving … the sand never stops existing.
Day after day after day. Year after year after year. Generation after generation after generation.
Regardless of weather patterns … changing seasons … high-rise condos … visiting travelers … or the time of day. The beach and all that it encompasses just continues to exist … rarely anything interrupts the pattern of the beach. The waves, the wind, the sand, the birds, and the seashells don’t have a choice.
My life is so significant that I get to make a difference at my moment in history! I am empowered, by the Creator of the universe, to leave footprints in the sand of history that will never wash away. I do more than merely exist … I live at full-throttle with eternity in my heart!
My life is not pre-determined by the sun, moon, stars or even gravity! I work in tandem with God and all that He is to make a splash that is heard around the world!
My life is so significant!!
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11
3 – The grandeur belongs to all of us.
On my daily walk along a two-mile stretch of the beach, there are extravagant, palatial homes and multi-million dollar condominiums. My gaze sweeps to include Spanish architecture … Southern plantations with pillars … pink, weather-beaten cottages … and nondescript cement block domiciles.
The farther I meander down the miles of beachfront living, the less opulent the homes become. While I begin this daily stroll in the middle of human wealth and earthly extravagance, I quickly find myself among the lives of those who live in weathered and run-down shacks. However, the amazing truth is this … each home shares the same view!
Regardless of their address … the grandeur is the same! Regardless of real estate price point … the magnificence is still breathtaking! Regardless of architectural style or income bracket … the view never gets old! I don’t know what your living conditions look like today, but I can tell you this, we all serve the same God! The view, as we meander through life, is not determined by our circumstances but by keeping our gaze on His glory!
As I walk down the beach, I determine whether to look at the living conditions on my right … or the unequalled view of creation on my left. Will I be hypnotized by what man has made or by what God has created?!
My challenge to you today, whether you are spending a week at the beach or are frozen in time with a winter that never ends is this …Choose your view! Don’t look at your run-down circumstances but fix your gaze on His glory!
Don’t get too big for your beach … your life is not about you but it is about the God Who created you! You are of vast importance to the Creator! He thinks about you more times every day than there are grains of sand along the endless seashore!
Take off your shoes and ruin your pedicure! There is life to be explored and celebrated every day … splash in the waves of circumstance and leave lasting footprints along your moment of history.
“How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.” – Psalm 139:17 & 18a
