We are so fortunate to live in close proximity to a beach, and we take just about every available opportunity to go there, being a family of beach lovers.
Our activities there are varied, and dependent upon the weather, naturally. Sometimes our beach visit may just be for the purposes of a long walk, or to sit on the sand and relax. Other times we will take our dinner there and eat at the beach, or take the dog for a walk at the times he’s allowed on there.
Our kids too will do various things – play amongst the beach huts, ball games, fossick, and of course they’ll swim when the weather’s warm enough. Sometimes when it’s not quite warm enough too.
Most visits, irrespective of the weather, will involve some form of building or tunneling. From elaborate sand castles, to water channels, to plain holes – our boys in particular just enjoy digging around in the sand, making something. This can keep them occupied (and quiet, and not fighting) for hours.
As I’m watching them build and dig, and occasionally helping or adding some words of wisdom, I’m thinking ‘as soon as the tide comes in, all that hard work is going to be washed away’. In the back of their minds they know it too, that by morning, there won’t even be a sign of all the hard work they’d put in just the day before.
Sadly, as I look around my community, I see people who similarly spend lots of time and energy working hard building their own little ‘castles’ of stuff and basking in their accomplishments. Yet at some point in the future, it will all be gone, not a trace will remain.
Jesus told a parable about a rich man who made plans to keep tearing down his barns to build bigger ones to house his ever increasing crop yields. He thought to himself that with so much stored up, he could take life easy; eat, drink and be merry. But God reminded him that he could die any day, and then who would get what he’d set aside for himself. And Jesus said a person was a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.
It’s easy to get caught up in, the need to work and toil to make wealth for yourself. To buy things for pleasure’s sake. To get ‘stuff’ to make you happier.
I think Jesus was right – these things are all temporary. And one day they’ll be gone – or you’ll be gone.
But one thing the Bible espouses is that a relationship with God is one that can last forever. Perhaps we should be putting just as much effort into this as we do building bigger barns?
A sand castle looks good for a day. A life lived unselfishly, a life of giving and loving and seeking after God, well that looks good forever.
www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington
