Sand Castles

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 7
The third annual Canadian Open Sand Castle Competition was held at White Rock, B.C.
In only four hours, 200 groups of contestants turned the beach into a weird landscape of fanciful sculptures and architecture. The first prize went to a fairy castle rising above white clouds (liberally dusted with talcum powder). Others were as beautiful or as interesting, and 100,000 people crowded onto the beach to view the masterpieces.
Night came; the tide rolled in, and the sun rose the next morning on an empty beach. Of all the excitement, all the competition, all the frenzied building, no trace remained.
The sea gulls reclaimed their beach; the breakers rolled and crashed on the sand as always, but the sand castles-where were they?
What a pity that they didn’t last! All the planning and effort went into buildings that would be swept away by the waves! But many, many people are busy today building elaborate castles in the sand. All their time, all their energy, all their hopes and dreams are centered on their castles of sand. What will they do when the tide comes in?
The builder at last will have to say, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught, and in vain” (Isa. 49:44Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God. (Isaiah 49:4)).
The contestants had to build between one tide and the next; how much more time have we in our little life on “the shifting sands of time”?
The Bible tells us that “the things which are seen are temporal” (that is, temporary or relating to time-sand castles!) “but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:1818While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)).
The Christian can say, “We have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:11For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)). No rising tide can wash that building away.
Isn’t it wonderful to be able to look beyond our collapsing castles in the sand to a building “eternal in the heavens”? We can gaze past our brief life here to everlasting life, which is ours for the taking. Only one group could win the prize in the castle-building contest, but God’s offer is open to all of us.
“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)).