Sand Castles
Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say,‘ The potter has no hands’? Isaiah 45:9
Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:8
Insight
Our family spends a lot of time at the beach. As a true, born and raised local, my summer childhood memories include boats, waves, sand, and the smell of sunscreen. I’ve always loved everything about the beach, but I really loved building sandcastles.
I’ve never liked using the perfectly shaped buckets with their molds of towers and formed structures. These frustrated me because I could never get the sand to look like the mold it just came out of. There has to be the right consistency of sand and water to ever make it work. Then, once it’s achieved, it’s impossible to replicate over and over again to make a more substantial structure. I never wanted just a single tower. I wanted to build a fortress. So, the harder I tried to copy the first mold, the more frustrated I would get. The mold never fulfilled its purpose for me.
Eventually, I discovered a more satisfying way to build the castle of my dreams, uniquely made and intentionally never recreated. I would sit at the shoreline, pick up a handful of wet sand and let the sand and water mixture drip from my hands. With drip after drip of this beach mud, I would build my castle. I would build the towers, form the windows, create the terraces, construct the walls around it, and design every piece of architecture. I could see it all the potential in those globs of wet sand.
I imagine that God, like the potter in today’s scripture, sees and forms us in a similar way. We see our blobs of mud and question what good is it that we have these parts of ourselves that we dislike. We look through eyes that see our deficits and look for imperfections. We see what others have and want something better for ourselves. We are fully aware of everything we lack, of every circumstance we wish were not true, and we wish God would have given us a little more of this or a little less of that.
So, we presume to know what the mold should look like and we then make every effort to ensure our results. Then we would be able to trust God. Then our life would be a little easier. Then we could do something impactful. Then we would be the people we think we should be.
But as we question the design and cling to the things we would do differently, we stop trusting the One who created us. If the One who created the oceans to stop on the shoreline used that much intentionality on a body of water, how much more so has He planned and purposed for us created in His image?
Not trusting God with our lives may leave us like the dry sand resting far away from the crashing waves. This sand is not shapeable yet makes every attempt to fit into the perfect sandcastle mold. Or maybe we are left more like the sand by the shore, tossed and turned by the waves and too hard to be pliable. We fail to trust the One that can take a handful of beach mud and transform it into a castle.
When we trust Him, we surrender what we think our lives should look like and how our castle should be formed. We trust He sees the beauty and purpose in us. We avail ourselves to be the extravagant creation He intends for us to be in and for His kingdom. Trusting His sovereignty allows us to surrender because we believe what He has for us is greater than we can imagine.
With every drip castle I made, and there have been thousands over the years, not a single one of them has been the same. But in each of them, I see the tower, windows, terraces and every intricate piece of architecture. Each one as glorious as the one before it. God sees our drips of mud and forms and fashions them exactly for the purposes He has for each of us.
Reflection
What area(s) of your life do you wish would be different? Journal a few out.
How can you trust God with those areas? How can you surrender the need to control the outcome?
Prayer
God, as my Heavenly Father and Creator, I thank you for this gift of life. Forgive me for the places that I have not surrendered or trusted with you. I release them to you now. I pray that I would allow you to mold and shape me according to your plan and purposes.
Ashley Sarvis, Port City’s Welcome Coordinator, wrote today’s devotional.
