Creation Bumping Up Against Us

God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life!
        Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”
    God created the huge whales,
        all the swarm of life in the waters,
    And every kind and species of flying birds.
        God saw that it was good.
    God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean!
        Birds, reproduce on Earth!”
    It was evening, it was morning—
    Day Five. -
Genesis 1:20-23 (MS)

Ahhhh...the beach.  I have so many of my favorite things this week: The sand between my toes, family (including grands!) at my side, a glass of wine in my hand, good books within reach, good food on the grill and a beautiful ocean-front view from my deck.  Life doesn't get much better. Each time I read this part of the creation story, visions of the beach fill my soul.

I love the beach, but I am definitely a shallow water bather... like maybe up to my shins.  As much as I love the idea of all that sea life, I don't want any of it bumping up against me!  

That's one of the hard parts of Christianity.  We are supposed to love all of God's creation, including all the different kinds of people.  And as an ideology, we agree.  But not so much when they start bumping up against us!  We love poor people, but perhaps we don't want them asking us for money.  We love people of all colors, creeds, nationalities and so forth, but maybe we don't want them marrying our children.  It's all good until it actually affects our nice, tidy lives.

But that's just it.  God doesn't want our lives to be nice and tidy.  If he did, he never would have asked Mary to mess up her plans... or Moses... or Paul.  God is always challenging us to be more by experiencing more.  We will never know how much we can really love people until we love all sorts of people by touching their lives and allowing them to touch our own.  It's easier to erect walls and keep them out, but we miss out on so much of God's creation and the wonderful things we can learn and the new ways we can love.

I love to watch videos of divers interacting with sea life, and I know I'm missing out on so much by keeping myself out of the sea.  I'm probably not going to change in that respect.  But I do want to keep my life open to new kinds of people.  Being an introvert, that's not the easiest thing for me.  But I pray that my daily interactions will allow others to bump into me occasionally and I won't freak out and run away

Creator God,
Thank you for sea life.  It is so beautiful and fascinating. Thank you for those that love to interact with it so that I may benefit from their work.  Help us to keep the oceans and other bodies of water clean and beautiful.  Amen.