I was on the beach earlier this month, getting out my frustrations with God, hoping to get some encouragement. I started picking up pretty bits of shell and rock and glass, enjoying the colors and being soothed by the activity of searching, while conversing with my Creator.
As my bladder began insisting it was time for me to end my search, I stood looking at the collection I had uncovered. I thought, “This will be a good reminder of my time with God”. And I felt in my spirit that I needed to drop these things and walk away.
At first I protested: that doesn’t make any sense. These are just bits of things, they make me happy. What an odd thought. Probably the OCD kicking in. But no, this was an object lesson. Did I really need those things to remember my time with God? Did I need more things to look at and decorate with until the clutter consumed my space?
So I went through the shells one by one to make sure I wasn’t leaving an important one. And in the end, I dropped them all on the sand. And in my spirit I sensed that God was encouraging me to trust Him, not in all the pretty things I think I need to keep me happy or secure or relevant.
We have been in the process of completing an emergency move from our rented duplex to an apartment, and this scene has replayed in my mind throughout going through our things, figuring out what is salvageable from mold and mice, what is needed, and what isn’t.
I’ve had many opportunities to ask myself: What things am I holding on to because I hope to one day get to it, or because I like the idea of it, or because I might need it later? How does amassing all these things hinder my time and energy to follow through with what God is calling me to? I come from an ancestry that kept things out of the “what-ifs” of potential lack or actual poverty. My forebearers compiled their own collections of perceived need and comfort to detrimental effect. This is uncomfortable territory.
And I keep seeing myself throwing the pretty shells back on the sand, trusting God to keep me secure and complete, and somehow the desire to hold on to things weakens.
Then I lost something of personal value. I had toted around a wrought iron and wood bench that belonged to my poverty-level parents before they divorced when I was a teen, all the way from New Mexico to Washington. It was special to me, even with the difficult memories. I had completed ongoing restoration on it with my husband, and it was beautiful. It was stolen from our yard in the middle of our move.
As I mourned the loss, I was reminded of my open hand dropping pretty, little, significant things in anticipation that God would be enough, that He would provide.This moving and other circumstances has also reminded me of the very temporary nature of buildings, people, and things. All are subject to change, to decay. And all this was causing me to feel dissatisfied. Restless. Searching.
So this morning I directed myself to seek God. I’ve been avoiding intimate time in prayer the past couple of weeks. It’s been busy and chaotic, but more than that, I’ve been afraid that God will not meet me in the middle of my swirling thoughts and feelings. No matter that He’s done it over and over before. I wasn’t sure about this time. Because the thing my anxious thoughts remember most about God is that He doesn’t do things my way. He doesn’t meet me how or when I expect Him to.
What anxiety conveniently leaves out is that the way God meets me and speaks with me is what I really need, every single time. I ended up reading Ecclesiastes, and being comforted by an ancient king’s perspective that mirrors my own fretting. I came across 2 Corinthians 5 which has done much good for my heart in the past, that reminds me that the temporary nature of this life is GOOD.
All these pretty things are good. But they are not of ultimate good. I can drop and miss and rest. And that will not change anything of eternal value. Give Him time and space to work, friend. He will not disappoint. This world surely will, but He will not.
Going to the Garden 