Monday, May 23, 2022
           (click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
As the wave drains away, another takes its place
Sharks glided across their 60 feet long, twelve feet high, windowed pool. We watched them from either side of the pool, and they were magnificent. Two scuba divers used small white brushes to clean the coral and the rocks the fish swam through, and of course the divers were as fascinating to us as the rest of the wildlife.
The sharks did not look dangerous. They ignored the other fish and never opened their mouths. But they were several feet long. Together in a feeding frenzy these sharks could destroy a school of fish or humans. The speaker showed Miles and Jasper a shark’s jawbone full of sharp teeth. “They are very sharp and you shouldn’t touch them,” he said. “They are cutter teeth, and they cut and then hang on.”
On our way home at the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi, we celebrated our time on the beach and in the salt waters of the Gulf. At Port Aransas we braved the windy days full of sand. We ran into the salty waves, dug tiny clams and found a hundred sea shells. So the aquarium was full of what we ourselves had just experienced. That’s the way to do a museum.
Let the high praises of God be in their throats. This is the glory of all his faithful. The Lord takes delight in his people.
I suppose some people fall in love with the beach life and never go home again. They find a boat and a job and a big wide beachcomber’s hat, and then stay close to the water. The waves never stop. The waves are loud enough to drown out the tourist traffic. When the sun goes down and you turn out the lights, sleep comes easily, arriving silently on mermaid wings.
We drove home instead. Four hours through south Texas cities and desert, away away away from the salty sea. I hope today we’ll visit the pool at our apartment house, but we won’t find any shells, and sand won’t stick to our sweaty skin, and we’ll hear the nearby traffic whizzing by. Jasper loved the beach, and I think he’ll love the pool again. But it won’t be the same, and now he knows it.
Lydia said to Paul and Barnabas, “If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home,” and she prevailed on us.
Jesus walked the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Paul and Barnabas made voyages across the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. Bodies of fresh and salt water were part of their daily lives.
In Port Aransas most houses, hotels and restaurants are painted bright pastel colors. Every street is a carnival. We tourists reveled in the difference between our world and this one, even to the colors on the wall.
None of that color surrounded Jesus and Paul during their wandering. Tourism had not yet been invented; there was no time for it. Most people used all their energy to live simple lives, eat simple food, and care for their families. Teachers and preachers and healers like John the Baptist, like Jesus, like Paul and Barnabas were mendicants, and they lived on alms from those they taught and healed.
As we relaxed in our house by the beach, went out to eat, played games and fell asleep, rode a golf cart, bought souvenirs, swam in the pool and the ocean, and played without end in the sand, I was amazed that any of this was possible. Bright colored walls are possible. A big museum with dolphins and sharks and sting rays that you can touch and feed is possible. We have time and money to do it all, and even some energy left over to, for example, write a devotion.
I never want to take these amazing experiences for granted, even though it’s hard not to. Instead, I want just to be thankful.
Our gratitude for the lives we’ve been given knows no bounds.
The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, will testify to me. And then you too will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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