Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
”I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;
He set my feet on a rock and gave me a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.
Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust…” Psalm 40: 1-4 (NIV)
From their view off the fifth-floor balcony, our two Granddaughters had seen it in the distance just the day before. Their beautiful creation in the sand was still standing despite the odds being against it lasting even to the end of the day on which it was built.
A day later, Lynda and I left our much-too-few-days at the beach with Hannah and Ellie Kate; but before we did we decided to take one more walk on the beach. And so after packing the car for the return, checking out, waving goodbye to dear friends—we made our way to the beach for one last moment together.
And as we entered the beach in the usual area, there it stood—the sandcastle and moat created by our two Granddaughters three days earlier—still a part of the glistening smooth sandy surface of the beach. It had been eroded just a bit from the ocean breezes that had whipped regularly across those sands during the past few days, but it still clearly stood out as the castle they had created—never having been washed away by the regularly rising-and-falling surf as had happened to other sand creations up and down the stretch of beach.
The reason—our girls had built the sandcastle and moat just outside the highest mark of the highest tide of the day. They had carefully gauged, and then constructed, their sand creations, just beyond the farthest reaches of the crashing foam, waves and surge of the sea. And as a result, all that they had built had remained safe and secure on the steadier and more predictably solid sand beyond the highest-tide marks of the shoreline.
What would you have done? I’m not sure I would have paid attention to the high-tide line as I started to build the sandcastle and moat. I wonder if that’s not a bit like some of the days of my life—turning my head from the safety and security of a more solid foundation while taking off in one direction after another. A bit like many days of some of your lives perhaps—when we go off on our own without an appreciation as to what we face, or what might be the best course for us to take—making mighty good time, but not exactly sure where we’re headed, or why we were headed that way.
And even more poignantly and importantly, we head off on our own without waiting upon or seeking the direction of the Lord for our lives. And—not at all like what our two Granddaughters did a few days ago—we instead, too often build our days, start our journeys, and plant our feet in the shifting sands and the low-tide pools of problems and uncertainties without first patiently seeking His guidance and direction.
And so we often find ourselves in the midst of the onrush of a surging sea, crashing waves and blowing winds, when all the while He stood ready, waiting patiently, to place our feet upon higher ground, upon a solid rock, and above the high-tide water mark of the oncoming problems, uncertainties and obstacles that often await our next steps.
And yet, even as He watches us head off in our own directions—as the psalmist wrote in the Psalm set out above—He is there to lift us out of the surging sea, crashing surf and howling winds, and put our feet back on solid ground, above the high-tide water marks of life.
Pretty neat Guy—our God!
Pretty neat sandcastle builder too—I suspect!
In His Name—Scott
Copyright 2010. Scott L. Whitaker. All rights reserved.
