Lessons on the Beach

Last week I spent my days sitting on the beach with my family in York Beach, Maine. Just about every summer we build these grandiose sand castles. (We have even been in the local newspaper for it.) But this year we were unable to make our castles because the tide came in everyday smack dab in the middle of the day. 

The first few days we stopped the tide from reaching us by digging a trench and a low wall. With that as our barrier we were able to turn the tide. The next day we decided to do the same. Our grand plan was to combine forces with the family next to us to create a super-wall that would stop the tide from coming up.

We worked so hard to build it. It was a large pile of sand and we were sure that it would stop the tide that was coming. Even when parts started to break and the foundation started to crack we worked to keep it intact. But the tide kept coming and while we stopped it for a while inevitably our wall broke and the water flooded in. Still my cousin Ashleigh held onto the biggest part of the wall. Holding it together until finally she too was engulfed in the waves. When all was said and done there was no sign that the wall had ever been there. 

As I looked at the sand where our wall once stood the whole situation kind of reminded me of our lives. We go through life thinking that our plans are fool-proof and that with them we will make something of our lives. Basically our plans are like the sand wall that we busy ourselves with while we pretend that the tide isn't coming. For us that tide is eternity and it is coming and there is nothing we can do to stop it and when all is said and done, as the years fade on, there will be no signs of the wall we built of sand. Our plans will have been for nothing. 

So we need to focus on something more important. God's plans. Once our wall protecting us from the water was destroyed we turned our attention to something else: boogie boarding. We started riding the waves of the tide. Riding the tide is like following God's plans and working to toward eternity instead of working against it and following our own inevitably flawed plans.

Are you busy building a sand wall that is crumbling around you? Or are you riding the waves of the tide? 

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." Matthew 6:19-20

"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts'" Isaiah 55:8-9 

If I learned one thing this summer is that obeying God's call for your life is so incredibly rewarding. I was petrified to go away this summer but the Lord blessed me more abundantly than I could have even remotely imagined. So my encouragement to you all today is to get on board with God and ride the tide of His never ending love.