Beach Trips and Biblical Truths: Embracing God's Limitless Knowledge
If you've taken a trip to the beach with kids, then you know.
The sand.
Even weeks later you will continue to find it— in the car seats, all over your car's floor mats, in the bottom of your bags, and you'll even be sprinkled with a gritty surprise when you open your collapsible wagon. A reminder of vacations past.
It's a fact. If your kids spend any significant time in the sand, it will follow you long after!
Throughout scripture, we see sand used as an illustration for things too numerous to count, such as Abraham's descendants, vast armies in cosmic battles, and God's own thoughts.
In Psalm 139:17-18 we read, “God, how precious your thoughts are to me; how vast their sum is! If I counted them, they would outnumber the grains of sand” (CSB).
This verse is preceded by David, to whom this Psalm is attributed, describing how fully God knows him. He describes God creating his physical body and numbering each of his days.
In contrast, God is endless. Limitless. Never-ending. I could spend my life growing deeper in my relationship with the Lord, and still not run out of things to learn of and ways to know Him.
Eventually, stow-away sand grains we bring home from the beach will disappear. We lose it bit by bit until we no longer find it in surprise places. But we can never know the Lord so deeply, that we completely comprehend Him.
I pray that we hold precious the thoughts and words of God, just like David does; that we would hunger to know Him more because it is the hungry who are filled (Mt. 5:6).
May we continually discover more about God who completely knows each of us.
Meet the Author
Mary Kate Brown
Mary Kate and her husband Brian are high-school sweethearts who left their lifelong home in the Chicago suburbs to build their homestead in rural Western Michigan. She's a homeschooling mama of four daughters and a homebody who enjoys making hot breakfasts, working in her garden, and frequenting the local farmers market. After overcoming health challenges due to autoimmunity, her passion is pursuing wholeness beyond her diagnosis. She encourages other mamas to do the same to shape the wellness of their families.
