If ifs and buts were candy and nuts…

… oh, what a beautiful day we’d have.

My mom used to say that to me all the time when I was a kid. I hated that phrase. Still don’t love it, quite frankly. But I was thinking on the way home from work recently about how groovy it would be if life - or even just some days of life - were like a children’s song or show. (Yeah, we were listening to Laurie Berkner at the time. What of it? I love her with a passion usually reserved for tacky tv.)

I’ve got a magic box

With twenty-seven locks

And inside I keep all my secrets

I pretend that it’s closed so nobody knows

When I get inside and go for a ride

that I can fly higher than everything

Just watch me now, I’ll show you how

My magic box has wings

And I can fly higher than everything

Get a smile on my face

I’m a rocket ship in space

I can do anything

‘Cause my magic box has wings…

Berkner’s “Magic Box” makes me think about what would be in my own magic box. The quick answer, I’m pretty sure, is that it would let me take a nap, undisturbed, whenever I wanted.

But really, if I had a magic box, what would be in it? What would it allow me to do? What would it look like?

The Sunday School answer, of course, would be that God was my magic box, that God was in it and around it, that He WAS the box. But in reality, I don’t know. My mother’s box would be that box. She has the most amazing, unwavering, unquestioning faith. Me? I’ve got some questioning … and some days, some wavering. And I’m way short on amazing. The idea that God could be all that was in my box is a little overwhelming. Maybe I want more in my box.

I know that my God is big enough to be my safe place, that His arms are open wide to me any time I venture toward Him. I’m doing a lot more praying these days (which is really good for me … prayer was the strongest aspect of my Christian life before we moved, but my Florida prayer life has been lacking).

I’m trying to find that safe, comfortable place of conversation with God that I had lost after we moved. But that place wouldn’t be my magic box. I’m pretty sure when my magic box opened, I would be at the beach. The sun would be warm but not burning (I burn easy)… there would be a gentle breeze off the ocean… the water would be warm.

Though my relaitonship with Christ hasn’t been all that amazing these last few years - of my doing, of course, not His - I am more aware of Him on the beach than anywhere else. I am amazed at the precision of His work… the tiny details on a seashell, the way the salt works in the water for the sea creatures. As I let the sand drain through my fingers, I think about how very many people He has loved through the years.

I watch the birds (I’m scared of birds… I keep a close eye on them at the beach) and think about how God created them, each one of them. We saw blue jellyfish once, and while I know their stings are more painful than that of clear jellyfish, I was entranced by them. They were this electric blue. What made God think that a startlingly beautiful shade of blue should be given to a creature that spends its time under the water?

He made all of these intricate choices, these beautiful, amazing designs. And if He put that much time and thought and love into something like a grain of sand or a bird or a jellyfish or a seashell, how much more spectacular am I in His eyes? And, if I’m honest, how much more spectacular should I be in my own eyes?

Maybe God is in my magic box after all… just not in the form I’d expected. Maybe I should stop looking for God in the same old ways and start being willing to see Him in forms I don’t expect.

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Tagged with: beach • Faith • God • Laurie Berkner • magic box