A Sandbox
We stopped at a roadside park. We got out of our car so we could get a better look at the lake. On our way, I noticed some children playing in what looked like the world’s largest sandbox. It was enormous! Fifty children, toys and all, could have fit in it and still have had plenty of room to play.
We walked on, and soon the lake with all its beauty opened up before us. It filled the horizon. Its shoreline seemed endless. It was an impressive sight. Standing there watching that never-ending sandy shoreline, I considered that enormous sandbox and the children playing in it. Here was the real thing, a lakeshore furnished with all the sand and water a child could possibly want, and yet they were playing in a sandbox – an imitation. They had come so far and were so close, and yet they had chosen a sandbox instead of the beach.
CONSIDER, as with those children, I suppose many of us have settled for sandboxes. Perhaps some of us believe they are the real thing. They are big and provide us with an adequate supply of sand. They do have their advantages. They are safe! We will not get washed out to sea in one.
And yet I do not believe God intended for us to live in sandboxes when He made a beach for us just a short distance away. Sandboxes are confining and do not allow us to participate in or experience fully the beauty and enormity of God. Life cannot be fully appreciated when confined to a sandbox or any other box, nor was life given to us for such a purpose. As I walked back to the car I wondered, “Where was I living my life, in a sandbox or on the beach?”
Rev. Wendell Mettey
Revised 8/2/2014
