Wandering Through This Life: Written in the Details

"How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you." ~Psalm 139:17-18

As I spent the last half of my spring break (ha...I'm spoiled, I'm not even a student anymore and I still get a spring break) hanging out on the beach, my thoughts yet again turned to these verses. They tend to come to mind often when I'm on a beach, or anywhere around sand for that matter. Two summers ago, on the beaches of Chicago, the realization of the sheer incomprehensible greatness of God's love for us, His children, that is illustrated through the psalmists words, hit me. Since then, I cannot be near a beach without being awestruck and in wonder of our great Creator. Often this past summer, as I wandered the beaches of Traverse City, Michigan, the inner thoughts of my mind would again turn to mulling over the immense love that God has for me, and you. I would come back to my room after the beach and for days, I would find sand everywhere. It never ceased to amaze me that that little bit of sand that drove me crazy when it was scattered across my dorm room floor is only the tiniest portion of a minuscule amount of sand in Traverse City, not to mention the world, and God's thoughts of us are even greater still than the number of grains of sand existing throughout the entire world! Being in Myrtle Beach brought all those thoughts back to me, and this time, my mind took things a step further. As I walked along the beach, one morning in rain, and a couple days in the brilliant southern sunshine, not only was I struck by the amount of sand and what that means in context of the verse in Psalms 139, but I also found myself stunned by the intricacies and detail seen in each seashell, in the power of the ocean waves, and the feel of the wind on my skin. God did ALL of that! If He put that much thought into something as small as a seashell, if He gives that much power to the ocean, when that power and strength is nothing in comparison to His own power and strength; how much must He love us in order to sacrifice His Son?

These walks on the beach led me to think about one of my favorite Psalms, Psalm 104. I love the way that David so visually describes the power that God has, in every detail of life for not just man, but all of creation. It's amazing, astounding even, when you sit back and consider just what David is saying with Psalm 139:17-18. We aren't just loved, we are truly, deeply, incomprehensibly, and wonderfully loved by God, the Creator of all things, in a love that is so completely out of reach of our minds that we tend to box it up in order to help ourselves understand this great love, however, in doing so, we are costing ourselves dearly. Who are we to put God in a box, to diminish the gift of His love just so that we, lowly humans, are able to make sense of it? So what if it's not possible to fully understand God's love! Look around you, look at the little details in every aspect of the world. Evidence of God's love is displayed throughout history, painted across the sky with each sunrise and each sunset. Every blade of grass was intricately designed by Him, every flower and leaf, every tree. His love for us is written in every detail of His creation!