Reflections on the Beach: The Innumerable Promises of God

 

Reflections on the Beach

Week Four

"The Innumerable Promises of God

Focus Passage: Isaiah 40:29-31

Bible Reading: Romans 11-1st Corinthians 1

    You can't make a journey to the beach without having an encounter with SAND.  Sand is everywhere. When you first step onto the sand at the beach it's very hot and typically very loose. It's ZERO fun pulling a beach wagon, strapped down with chairs, and managing three children through that wasteland. But as you get closer the sand gets cooler, firmer. You can lay out your beach blanket, plant your umbrella, set up your chair, and relax on the cool sand as the ocean waves crash about your feet (you have to want to go to the beach now). Sand isn't just everywhere at the beach but it travels with you everywhere you go. It's almost impossible to get it off. We found sand in the back of the van weeks after a trip. Sitting at the beach I often contemplate how much sand there is.  The amount is innumerable and inestimable.  One group of scientists did a study concluding that "if you assume a grain of sand has an average size and you calculate how many grains are in a teaspoon and then multiply by all the beaches and deserts in the world, the Earth has roughly (and we're speaking very roughly here) 7.5 x 1018 grains of sand, or seven quintillions, five hundred quadrillion grains (https://www.quora.com/How-many-grains-of-sand-are-there-on-Earth-and-how-many-stars-are-there-in-the-universe#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Internet%20%E2%80%9Cif%20you%20assume%20a,sand%2C%20or%20seven%20quintillion%2C%20five%20hundred%20quadrillion%20grains.%E2%80%9D). I don't know about you, but that seems like A LOT!

   There is another number that we struggle to wrap our minds around, the number of promises that God gives us in the Bible. There are an estimated 3,000 promises in the Scripture (if you count the times they are repeated then there are nearly 9,000).  God doesn't just make a lot of promises, but He is also a promise keeper. Each of you reading this are promise makers, but we are not always promise keepers. We have failed countless times to uphold our word. Typically the people that we break the most promises with are the people we love the most, namely our family. I can't tell you the number of times I said I would do something and didn't fulfill that promise (I owe my kids at least one hundred trips to get ice cream). God is the total opposite, His promise is a guarantee, unbreakable. One promise that stands out to me is in Isaiah 43:2, which says "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." God doesn't say that our life will be easy, instead, He makes it clear that the waters will rise and there will be fire, but amid those turbulent times, He has promised us that He will be with us. Read that promise again, that unfailing, unchanging, unbreakable promise at the start of verse two, I WILL BE WITH YOU. Breathe that in, rest in that truth. No matter what you are enduring or going through right now, He is with you. Promises mean nothing in the good times when the skies of life are clear. The depth of their meaning and the strength behind them are fortified through the affliction. Despite your circumstance, you can know His promises are unfailing.

Reflections on the Road: 

One of the most famous hymns is Standing on the Promises. We do indeed stand on the promises of God, but I find that life sometimes levels me, and knocks me down. In those moments I cling to the promises, I knell on the promises, I weep on the promises, and I claim those promises as my own. This week, reflect on one promise God makes to us in the Word, write it down, and watch God work.