Back to reality… Today is grey, damp and favors the cool side – quintessential Illinois in March / early April.  Less than 24 hours ago I was still soaking up the sun in South Florida.  Seems like the older I get the better the warm sunny days feel.

My wife and I enjoyed a few days away this week.  It was needed.  We were overdue for some rest, relaxation and time together.  We accomplished everything on our list of things to do – which was basically nothing (well, I had stone crab claws on my list… and I got it done).  We laid around by the pool and on the sun-soaked balcony of our villa reading and listening to music.  We walked the beach and took in the sunset.  We found some great places to indulge fresh, local delicacies.   It was blissful and we are grateful.

As we were walking the beach one morning, I found myself marveling at the millions of seashells that paved the sand. I mean millions – tens, maybe hundreds of millions!  All shapes and colors and sizes – each one unique and unmatched.  So imaginative God is – so powerful and creative.  And now all of these millions of empty shells were literally piled on the beach – presented as Exhibit A by the grand lawyer that is the sea - a testament to the creative genius of the God who ordered the existence of the life that each shell represented.

 The thought of God’s attentiveness to the tiniest of details brings me comfort. He knows how many shells there are on the beaches of Marco Island.  He knows the number of grains of sand on the beaches themselves.  Jesus said in the Gospels that God cares about the flowers of the field and the birds in the air.  He’s attentive to them.  He knows just what they need, and He has power and resource to meet each need.

 …And He loves me so much more than these.  That’s comforting. The God of a hundred million seashells is the God of me personally.  He cares so deeply for me.  He is more acutely aware of my frailty and neediness than I am.  He knows what is best for me.  More than that, He wants what is best for me. 

 Sometimes we think of God in such a disconnected way.  David felt like that from time to time. In the eighth Psalm, David finds himself marveling and in awe of the majesty and creative genius and power of God, and he is compelled to ask, “What is man that you are mindful of him?”  It’s true – It is hard to wrap our heads and hearts around the truth that God cares for us.  Each of us – unique as we are. 

Quiet your mind for a few minutes and think of the seashells.  Then consider how much God cares for you.  He loves you so much more than shells or sand or flowers or birds.  Trust him…

O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.  

Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
    to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
    and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
    and crowned him with glory and honor.

You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,  and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

 O Lord, our Lord,  how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8