I have been taking my daily walk on the beach before it gets too cold to collect beach glass. I would like to make some of it into jewelry. (My jewelry classes were fun!) It’s interesting that I can walk down one way to find beach glass and come back the same path and find pieces that I missed. I’m sure there are many more I missed. How much is that like our life? As we navigate through life there are some things that we see. But how much is missed because of a negative attitude, a rushed schedule, an illness, feeling self sufficient or something else that has captured our focus? There seems to be more beach glass closer to the water where the sand is wet. They stand out more. Our focus determines what we see. I found the glass that was sitting on top of the sand. I didn’t want to dig around the rocks and sand to uncover other pieces because I didn’t want to get dirty. We may miss many treasures or blessings God has for us because we want the easy way out, don’t take the time or don’t want to take a risk. That takes too much effort.
Some sections of beach had smooth sand with little to no rocks on the surface. Because these sections had no rocks or beach glass I walked quicker. I think God gives us times in life that are less stressful to rest and refuel for the next wave of hard times. It is during these times many of us seem to breeze through life taking our focus off of Christ because we don’t need Him. Everything is going great.
God’s word does say that we will go through trials(Isaiah 43:1-3; James 1:2,3). We get tumbled around like the glass in the lake. The tumbling is what changes the glass into the smooth beautiful pieces. 1 Peter 1:6,7 says, ” In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
God doesn’t willingly cause these rough times but allows them to show us our hearts and to transform us into the person he wants us to become. Impurities come to the top when gold is heated and scooped off leaving the pure gold. The gold doesn’t increase when heated but decreases as it becomes a form to be used. When we take the focus off ourselves it allows God to increase in our lives. The gold changed so it could become something beautiful. As the glass is tossed and tossed around in Lake Michigan the rough edges are smoothed and washed up on the beach for walkers to pick up and enjoy.
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| Beach glass I found on one day’s walk. Notice a couple pieces need to be tossed around a bit more. |
Lord, thank you for the tumbles in my life because I know You are using them to transform me into Your image.
On the journey,
Trish