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“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. When I awake, I am still with You.” – Psalm 139:16-17
He walked across the hot beach on his tip-toes and cringed every time his foot hit the sand. As he neared the water’s edge, the sand was damp and cooler to the touch, so his walking became normal and his demeanor changed to one of joy and happiness to be here. With bucket and shovel in tow, he and his sister begin digging into the moist sand, and filling the buckets as the adventure of building sand castles began. I helped Lisa set up the chairs and blanket just beyond the reach of the encroaching tide, and close enough to the kids to ensure their safety. As they brought forth their buckets filled to the rim with sand, they dumped them near our blanket forming the corners of their soon to be castle.
Some of the sand stuck to the inside of thde bucket, and created more of a pile of sand rather than a neatly formed structure for the castle corner. I watched as they would put the bucket back over the top of the sand and try to reshape it, but it would only make it worse. Finally, disheartened David knocked the pile of sand over in frustration and began once again filling his bucket. This effort repeated time after time after time, until finally he came over and explained the problem to Lisa and I, with a little bit of whining I must add. We explained that the sand he was using was too wet and that made it stick to the bucket. Perhaps he should clean out his bucket and get sand from a different spot that wasn’t as wet as what he had been using. He tried this advice and surprisingly it worked. The forms coming from the buckets took on the shape of the bucket’s castle like design. His architectural creativity became the focus for the next 30 minutes or so as he worked on building the walls and eventually the center structure of the castle.
I observed the frustration he suffered when the simplest particle on earth could not be controlled. A grain of sand. Microscopic in size, yet unbelievably dense when adjoined with other grains surrounding it. Have you ever sat and thought about the single grain of sand? Admittedly, I have. Here are a few probing questions from my curious mind.
1) When was that individual, single grain of sand formed?
2) Where has it traveled around this globe, tossed by the waters tide?
3) How many sand castles has it been a part of?
4) How many feet have pressed down upon it’s microscopic form?
5) How long will it be here?
Weird, I know, but hey at least I’m thinking. A single bucket (say 10” high, 6” wide) might hold millions of grains of sand. As I sit on a beach and look as far as the eye can see, I am in awe by the volume of sand in any given spot. When I was younger we dug a hole on the beach to how deep the sand was. Our hole was no less than 4 feet deep and we had not yet run out of sand. So with the miles and miles of beaches in the world, spanning hundreds of feet in width and several feet in depth, there are trillions and trillions of buckets of sand upon the shores around the globe. This doesn’t even take into consideration the depths of the sea and the fact that sand covers the ocean floor for millions and millions of square miles and God only knows how many miles deep under the oceans of the world. Taking all of this into consideration, you quickly come to the realization that the volume of grains of sand around this earth is an unimaginable, uncountable number short of infinity.
Now, read Psalm 139 again and realize that the Lord, our God, thinks of you personally more often than that number. One could do the same exercise with the stars in the sky, and get the same result – an infinitely large number. God is never not thinking about you. You are His creation and despite the fact that there are 6.2 billion of us on this planet (+/-), we are each unique in His mind and thoughts. If you are trying to fathom God in a manner known to mankind, we cannot. He is beyond comprehension, omnipotent and omnipresent. He is aware of all things that happen on this earth at any given moment. Every grain of sand, every rain drop that falls, shares in the fact that they too were created by the same hand that created you and I. Stop trying to fit God into your image, but realize that He is everywhere at all times and watching over you with a loving heart and grace filled spirit that has endured all time.
Some of the sand stuck to the inside of thde bucket, and created more of a pile of sand rather than a neatly formed structure for the castle corner. I watched as they would put the bucket back over the top of the sand and try to reshape it, but it would only make it worse. Finally, disheartened David knocked the pile of sand over in frustration and began once again filling his bucket. This effort repeated time after time after time, until finally he came over and explained the problem to Lisa and I, with a little bit of whining I must add. We explained that the sand he was using was too wet and that made it stick to the bucket. Perhaps he should clean out his bucket and get sand from a different spot that wasn’t as wet as what he had been using. He tried this advice and surprisingly it worked. The forms coming from the buckets took on the shape of the bucket’s castle like design. His architectural creativity became the focus for the next 30 minutes or so as he worked on building the walls and eventually the center structure of the castle.
I observed the frustration he suffered when the simplest particle on earth could not be controlled. A grain of sand. Microscopic in size, yet unbelievably dense when adjoined with other grains surrounding it. Have you ever sat and thought about the single grain of sand? Admittedly, I have. Here are a few probing questions from my curious mind.
1) When was that individual, single grain of sand formed?
2) Where has it traveled around this globe, tossed by the waters tide?
3) How many sand castles has it been a part of?
4) How many feet have pressed down upon it’s microscopic form?
5) How long will it be here?
Weird, I know, but hey at least I’m thinking. A single bucket (say 10” high, 6” wide) might hold millions of grains of sand. As I sit on a beach and look as far as the eye can see, I am in awe by the volume of sand in any given spot. When I was younger we dug a hole on the beach to how deep the sand was. Our hole was no less than 4 feet deep and we had not yet run out of sand. So with the miles and miles of beaches in the world, spanning hundreds of feet in width and several feet in depth, there are trillions and trillions of buckets of sand upon the shores around the globe. This doesn’t even take into consideration the depths of the sea and the fact that sand covers the ocean floor for millions and millions of square miles and God only knows how many miles deep under the oceans of the world. Taking all of this into consideration, you quickly come to the realization that the volume of grains of sand around this earth is an unimaginable, uncountable number short of infinity.
Now, read Psalm 139 again and realize that the Lord, our God, thinks of you personally more often than that number. One could do the same exercise with the stars in the sky, and get the same result – an infinitely large number. God is never not thinking about you. You are His creation and despite the fact that there are 6.2 billion of us on this planet (+/-), we are each unique in His mind and thoughts. If you are trying to fathom God in a manner known to mankind, we cannot. He is beyond comprehension, omnipotent and omnipresent. He is aware of all things that happen on this earth at any given moment. Every grain of sand, every rain drop that falls, shares in the fact that they too were created by the same hand that created you and I. Stop trying to fit God into your image, but realize that He is everywhere at all times and watching over you with a loving heart and grace filled spirit that has endured all time.
© Sondove Enterprises, 2013
For more Daily Thoughts go to: http://sondove.blogspot.com
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For more Daily Thoughts go to: http://sondove.blogspot.com
If you would like to be added to the email distribution please click here: Daily Thoughts
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