An Oceanfront View

I have always been a “mountain person” not a “beach person”. But that may be changing. I recently spent a couple of days on the Georgia coast. My wife and I had visited there over 25 years ago. Our first trip had been to St. Simon’s and this time we opted for nearby Jekyll Island.

We were there in mid-week, before Spring Break and the beaches were empty. Mountain people tend to prefer solitude which may be why I’ve never been much of a beach person. I could never afford to go to a secluded beach. So my beach experiences have been of the Texas Gulf Coast or Florida public beach variety which is akin to Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon. Tolerable if you’re about half-drunk, but otherwise unbearable.

The beach at Jekyll Island was perfect. Walking there at sunrise is a worship experience no matter who or what you worship. It’s just in our DNA. For a Christian, the first light of daybreak says “in the beginning”. The sky, the water and the beach speak of creation. Let there be life. Birds are everywhere. Small island deer stand frozen in the dunes then disappear. High tide has just passed and the waves are retreating leaving signs of life and death on the wet sand. It is as it has been for thousands of years. Ebb and flow, moon and sun.

And I believe there is, indeed, a purpose to all of it. It did not “just happen”. Something does not come from nothing. There is a “first cause”. We call it God. And for Christians it is personal. Life is short, eternity is forever. That beach is somewhere in between. Someday it will all come together. And the mountains will be there as well.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”–John 1:1-3