If you live near a beach, you know that every day the tide rises and falls. The swish of the incoming water rises a little higher with each wave until high tide is reached, and then lower and lower until low tide--all in a 24 hour cycle.
But when the sun and moon are aligned, we get especially high tides--and low ones. The water can retreat quite a distance on some beaches, revealing secrets. Sometimes they are treasures, like the shells a beachcomber might snatch up. But in some places the low tide reveals trash and old shoes.
Lately I've been seeing the old shoes in my life. Somehow the ordinary comforts are withdrawn, and I wonder where God is. I look at myself and there is nothing but trash scattered along a barren, lifeless beach.
The saints of old experienced this. Sometimes the cause was sin: "For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me." Psalm 38:4. David cried out under the weight of guilt and God's chastening hand.
Job was not conscious of known sin, yet felt abandoned by God. "I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me not." Job 30:20.
Others plead with God in trouble but seem to find no comfort: "Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favorable no more?" Ps 77:7.
This last complaint was Asaph's. However, he turns himself around and says, "I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old. I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings." Ps 77:11-12. He turns his eyes from self to God and His works.
Job kept pouring out his soul though the heavens seemed as brass. Finally the Lord answered, though perhaps not in the way the suffering man expected. Job saw God through His work of Creation and suddenly saw himself as vile. He repented in dust and ashes, and the Lord restored him. God had broken him, but in the end Job was richer than ever. Yes, I know, the Bible is careful to detail his restored wealth and children, but there is more: Job knew His Creator--and himself--in a way he had never known before.
David asked for God to restore the "joy of his salvation." What a prayer. David knew that he deserved nothing. Actually, he deserved death under the law for his sin. But Paul explains in Romans 4:6-7 that David understood that he could be justified before God without earning it. That God would "impute" righteousness to him.
How can this be? Jesus said that "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." John 8:56. The saints of old glimpsed the redemption that was in Christ.
Recently I heard a verse expounded that helped to turn away my eyes from dwelling on the old shoes on the beach. "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love" Eph 1:4.
Okay, admittedly, this is just part of the sentence---a long sentence. What this means is that the tent peg of our salvation is not anchored in us or even in this time. No, it is fastened in eternity past, in the mind of God the Father. The other end is fastened in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, the great End of the Story, given to us in Revelation as if it had already happened--for it is that sure.
How can this be? II Cor 5:21 reveals something quite amazing: "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."
Legally, when God looks at us He sees Christ and His righteousness. Always. Every day. Soak in this truth awhile, and you may also experience what I did. I forgot about the beach, and I also had a renewed desire to serve Him, not in order to be accepted or feel good about myself, but because, wow, who wants to dirty such a beautiful garment?
