Building Castles

It’s a beautiful hot, sunny day at the beach.  Blue skies overhead, seagulls gliding by and in the distance you can see a cruise ship sailing by.  Families are enjoying a wonderful summer day at the beach.  Children are reluctantly running towards the ocean water and begin to scream with delight as the waves come crashing towards them.  You notice a sweet family building a very elaborate sand castle.   Dad carefully fills the mold with sand and turns it out to see a perfectly formed castle tower.  Mom guides the children as they gather sea shells to decorate the castle. After the children carefully add each shell to the castle, the family takes a few steps back to marvel at their creation.  For a moment, everything is perfect!  But as the tides roll in and out, a huge wave is just on the horizon and completely destroys their castle with one big wave, the castle is gone.

Now, here is where you have to make a choice, do you get angry at the waves or do you choose to start again and make a newer, even better castle?   Perhaps you may be feeling like the waves of life are beating you down and you don’t know how you can begin to start over.  Where do you start?  Will you find the courage to pick up that pail and start to feel it with sand again?

Just when you think you have it all figured out, guess what happens?  It becomes unclear again.  If you had been told several months ago that everyone would be wearing face masks, you couldn’t eat at a restaurant, and visiting with family and friends would be out of the question.  Would you have believed it?  Probably not and yet this is where we are today.  

Those waves of life came crashing in and everything that once looked so lovely and wonderful is now unrecognizable.   What are we to do?  We so desperately want to know what the future holds and yet, God says hold on a minute.   I’m God and you are not!  You can build amazing castles, put all your hopes and dreams into them, but be prepared for those waves.  Just as the tides come in and out and no matter how hard you try, they keep coming.  

You can build, and rebuild, of course, those are the tangibles of life.  What a person of faith builds are the intangibles.  You have faith even when you can’t see beyond today, you have compassion on those around you, you have peace in the midst of the storms of life, those are the intangibles that are created when you live a life of faith.  SO what a wave crashing in on you, your faith allows you to pick yourself up and start again.  

This COVID-19 virus has certainly left it’s mark on 2020, it feels like this wave that keeps crashing in and won’t let up but we know that the waters will be calm again. Jesus has a way of doing that.  We know that as believers in Jesus Christ, what we will build will have lasting value, it’s faith, hope and love.  And of course, the greatest of these is love.  We are called to love one another, support each other through each trial and wave of life.  I pray that God will grant you peace and comfort as we continue to navigate through this covid pandemic.  Choose today which castle you will serve, the one you build on this earth or the one that is waiting for you in Heaven.