Of seashells and surprises

 It was my eureka moment for the day when the connection between seashells, which I read about this morning, and surprises, which my friend and I dealt with lengthily yesterday, became crystal clear.

Surprises.

My friend is at the threshold of a major chapter of her life. She is preparing to build a new home. Just like a seasoned project manager, she has embarked on this new project and is carrying on with vigor and passion. She is doing her best to put her experience, know-how, and resources to proper use. She has a clearly-stated goal and has undertaken a thorough feasibility study. She has consulted experts, sought and sifted through family and friends' opinions and suggestions. She has put legal matters in order. She has her finances for the impending construction ready.

But yesterday, I sensed that I was not talking with just a knowledgeable and diligent project manager. Not when she begun gushing over her growing awareness of what she considers “surprises” from the Lord.

Among the Lord’s recent surprises for her is a prospective landlord’s lowering of the monthly rental for a unit she could rent during construction which will enable her to work within her original budget. The demand of her prospective buyers for the removal of the telephone company’s structure side front of her property, or they will look elsewhere, indicates some kind of waiting and not rushing into things. Her sister's casual mention of seeing a "for rent" sign in one of the apartments along the same street will bring her closer to the property and make monitoring of the construction easier.

She says that these surprises prove that the Lord is constantly engaged in her life. The Lord of the universe is indeed in the big and small things of our lives. He is not only in the thunder and lightning, the parting of the seas, the immediate healing of a long-drawn illness. He is also in the details, the day-to-day, the easy-to-dismiss-as-insignificant. More than that, His moves are invariably in our favor, whether it becomes apparent to us immediately or in hindsight at some future time.

Since nothing breathes and moves and continues to live and prosper apart from Him, simple logic tells us that all things must start with Him. Why do carefully studied, well-timed, fully funded, well-executed, and best-equipped projects fail? Because we often go our own merry way, pumping up skills and resources which are, after all, only courtesy of God's goodness and grace. It is only when things do not go as we expected or planned do some of us realize that something is missing. Sadly for many of us, God and prayer are taken as a last rather than a first recourse. Or worse, even not at all. 

Perhaps our education and training are at the root of this flawed starting point or hard-to-break habit if you will. To date, the popularity of self-help programs and materials on learning how to take and keep control persists. Or perhaps many of us have not been told or been reminded enough that control is God’s domain. He is the Creator and is in constant control. We are merely the created and our purpose is to worship our Creator and delight in His goodness, to bask in His limitless love for us, and to feel secure about a glorious after-life.  

Seashells.

I collected shells over countless visits to the beach when I was young. Done in a more or less perfunctory manner, eventually misplacing them was therefore not surprising. Until this morning, they evoked quiet delight in me whenever I chance upon them -- on the beach or in some shelf of a home decor store, is about as much as I can say about shells. 

Sometime in 1987, I picked up Sea Edge by W. Phillip Keller. A preloved hardbound book, I somehow didn’t mind the nick at the bottom corner of its front cover and bought it anyway. Easy reading, it has 21 chapters of four or five pages each. 

Below are parts of chapter 20 which was my reading this morning. Shells along the Shore is a treasure trove of Keller's insights that can help a person make the most of her/his own days in the transforming hands of a loving God.  

 "All this happens the moment I pause in mid-step to stoop down and pick up the treasure from between the tides. It takes time to do this. It takes some thought as well. It takes attention to what the sea is offering.

"All of life is like that. Everywhere, scattered here and there along the shore of our lives the tides of time cast up their quota of beautiful bonuses. They may not all be obvious. Some will be less than spectacular. Yet scattered along the strand of our ordinary days it is possible to find precious gifts from God."

--- 

"It takes times to look for the special little gifts. His gracious Spirit sees fit to bestow upon us in the common round of our daily lives. Like shells upon the sand, they may not always be obvious. They may not be so large we just stumble over them. It may take time and effort and thought to find them. But it can become a habit for us to be constantly on the lookout for bits of divine loveliness and natural beauty all about. There is such a thing as God's child learning to look for the exquisite touch of his Father's hand and heart in the world around him.  

"It was a veteran missionary working amid the awful poverty, squalor and degradation of India's poor who taught his children early. "Learn to look. Observe quietly. Think long thoughts. Find what is beautiful. Give humble thanks. Recall to mind often. Refresh your soul in the gentle stream of our Father's bounty!"

"To do this is to live with an attitude of gratitude. It is to discover fragments of loveliness in the most ordinary events of life. It is to search and seek and seize every evidence of bonuses bestowed by the gentle hands of our loving Father.                                                                       

 "We of the affluent 20th century have had our sensibilities seared, our appreciation jaded, by the easy overabundance of our days. Few, few amongst us know anything of the humble art of a lowly heart that can find inspiration in the soaring flight of a gull or the exquisite shape of a shell or the song of the surf."

---  

"The Lord is not confined to the pages of the Holy Writ. He is not to be found only in our solemn sanctuaries. He is not restricted to liturgy or creed. He is everywhere at work in our weary old world. He is to be met in a thousand disguises. His touch is to be found at every turn of the trail. The point is I must be attuned in spirit, receptive in soul, alert in attitude, to detect the impact of His presence upon my path. 

"The bonuses of my Father are everywhere about me, scattered at random, freely, like shells upon the shore. But it demands time, thought, attention and perseverance tr discover their sheltered spot, their hidden secret places."

---

"Human spirituality does not consist only of creeds, churches, biblical knowledge or good deeds. It is made up as well from the humble art of learning to see and find the impress of my Father's hand in all the land. It is woven into the warp and woof of our little lives by sweet associations in the company of Christ, who cares about sparrows, lilies, and shells from the dea. Human spirituality comes to us afresh every day by His gracious Spirit who touches us with the impress of wind and surf and sea and sky and a thousand glorious sunsets over the shining shore of our days! All for free! All for the taking! "If we will but pause in mid-stride to pick up the treasures of our God from between the tides of time we can become richer in spirit than we ever dreamed." 

Sea Edge by W. Phillip Keller                                                                                               Copyright 1985                                                                                                                       WORD BOOKS, Waco, Texas, USA

Unless we become like submitted and trusting seashells in His hands, His surprises will elude us. For when we learn to keep watch for His surprises do we open ourselves to the joy, delight, and security only possible for a child who is assured that a good and loving Father is indeed in the big and little details of her life. Mere sneak peaks of what's in store beyond life here on earth perhaps, but how they can take one's breath away! Each time.