Shells

I love the beach.

The vivid brightness of the sun, the freshness of the breeze, the sound of the waves slowly kissing the shoreline, the warm sand against my bare toes... I love the beach.

One of my all time favorite things to do while at the beach is to wade into the water about ankle deep and just walk the shoreline. I love the feeling of the waves gently crashing against my calves and having them threaten to topple me off balance.  I’ll look out at the distance and watch the seam of the horizon, where sky meets sea. I’m always filled with a sense of wonder at the majesty of the view, followed closely by the grand reminder of my own small frailty in the vastness of God’s creation.

The other day, as I began to walk the shoreline, my mind betrayed the moment and flew to the mountain of pressing issues that bear upon my shoulders. Anxiety flooded me. Hope fled. And the beauty of the place I stood in was lost in a storm of clouded thought.

Burdens and fear almost stole away the joy of the moment; until a sharp, poignant, pain met the sole of my foot. Shells. The shoreline was littered with literally thousands of them. Shells of all shapes, colors, patterns, and hues were scattered all about my feet; some peeking through the sand partly buried below it, some riding the waves to and fro- they were everywhere!

Suddenly my focus shifted from the weight of my burdens to the beauty below me. I began to search through the wet sand beneath my toes looking for whole ones, uniquely colored ones, diversely shaped ones. Soon I found myself with a whole handful. I began to smile.

I smiled at the other people around me. I laughed with the little boy next to me after a bird flew overheard and startled him. I caught myself humming a happy tune. My heart felt light again; and, once more, I was gifted the ability to relish in God’s beautiful creation around me. Why? Because my focus was shifted from burden to beauty.

Does your spiritual life ever resemble that? Where you get yourself so burnt out focusing on all your problems and sin struggles. You invest all of your energy into the “do’s” and “don’t’s”. You fret over the need to keep up appearances as this “Christian” person you claim to be. You want to strive for perfection and yet lose yourself in your shortcomings.

Sound like you?

It sounds like me. It sounds exactly like me.

In the wake of the realization of what happened in me at the beach externally, I became aware that a similar thing had happened in my spiritual life. I lost the awareness of my identity in Christ by shifting my focus away from Him. I traded the peace and joy of my Savior for the stress and worry of my own inward strain. The beauties of God’s grace, patience, love, forgiveness, sovereignty, and faithfulness became overshadowed by the chains of burden and anxiety that I allowed to take fore-focus.

Y’all, I don’t have any fancy insight for you today. I don’t have any super powerful word to leave you with. All I have to share with you is this simple realization of my own heart. I have been convicted over the past few days of carrying too much weight and worry on myself- by myself. Maybe you’ve been the same way lately; I don’t know.

I was recently reminded of what the Scripture says in 1 Peter, “Casting all your anxieties on [the Lord] for He cares for you.” (5:7) This is so beautiful. This promise is outstanding in what it means for us as believers. But y’all, as beautiful as verse 7 is in that passage, we cannot forget the context it comes with. Verse 6 tells us, “Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time”. We have been given a promise that the Lord cares for us and that we can throw our burdens on Him. That being said though, we must first humble ourselves before Him...

In our own arrogance and pride, we deceive ourselves into believing that we can handle our issues. We convince ourselves that carrying our burdens for ourselves is our best option. But is it? Is it really? If I have a God so sovereign, faithful, infallible, and loving; then why on earth would I, in my own limited knowledge and fallibility, decide to attempt to handle life’s problems alone?

That’s as if you were to go in for major surgery. Would you willingly choose to have the hospital receptionist preform your procedure? No stinkin’ way! You would want the skilled, experienced, surgeon to handle the operation. You would demand to have the best professional care. Wouldn’t you? Of course! We all would!

Yet somehow, in our idiotic human thinking, we feel that we- like that newly hired hospital receptionist- are skilled enough to juggle all the intricacies of this thing we call life instead of allowing our Lord, that master surgeon so sovereign and infallible, to bear our burdens.

Jesus said to His disciples, “"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."”[Matthew 11:28-30]

Jesus offers to carry our burdens for us. He extends the invitation to handle all of life’s problems in our place. If we allow Him, then our souls can have rest- they can have peace. In that peace we have the freedom and the ability to see beauty again. We can see the beauty and wonder of God’s grace, the abundance of His love, the majesty of His sovereignty. Like me at the shore when I was overwhelmed with the glory of where I was and the thrill of finding those precious shells. We can have peace, and we can see beauty. If we turn our focus away from the Lord, if we choose to take over the bearing of our own burdens, then we lose the ability to see the beauty of the Lord. Our minds become so clouded with our own muck that we can focus on nothing but.

I’m learning to let the Lord carry my burdens. I’m not very good at it yet, but I’m learning. He is teaching me to find the shells of His glorious majesty, but I have to be willing to humble myself and let Him hold my burdens. I can’t hold both my own issues and the beautiful shells of His character at the same time. I’m learning to hold the shells...
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What Are You Holding?