Making an Invisible God Visible

It's a quote from Kay Warren's book, Dangerous Surrender (a great read).


It's Sumer's heart cry for the orphans in Ethiopia. It's my heart cry for people all around the world, even for my very own children.


We were at the beach and Stephen found a sand dollar on Shell Island. It was perfectly intact, not broken at all. It was something to be treasured. I remembered my dad finding those for me when I was a kid. They really are beautiful.


We brought the shells and the sand dollar back to the room and a certain sibling broke the sand dollar. They are delicate. Stephen was devastated to say the least and those of you that know Stephen well know that he doesn't just snap out of it quickly. As we were driving to dinner and the subject of the broken sand dollar came up yet again, I told everyone that we would just pray that we would find a sand dollar the next day. To which a frustrated Stephen said, "I've prayed about a lot of things and God doesn't answer." (Don't you just feel that way sometimes?) I prayed that we would indeed find a sand dollar the next day. As we were taking the boat to Shell Island, I was pleading with the Lord that He would answer Stephen's prayer. My cynical side thought, "it's just a sand dollar, what's the big deal? Does God really care about sand dollars?" You know what, I think He does. I think He wants to make Himself visible. I think He does it all the time and we just ignore it or pass it up as coincidence.


Within 5-10 minutes, Stephen had found a sand dollar. I was praising the Lord! He set it down by our bag, but then the bag got moved by a different sibling than the previous sand dollar fiasco. Do you know how hard it is to remember where exactly that bag was on the beach so that you can locate the sand dollar? It's hard, let me just say. We never did find that stack of shells. I started praying fervently that we would find another sand dollar and we did...we found several more and a shark tooth. You know why, because He did exceeding abudantly above all that we could ask or think. He does it all the time.


He makes Himself visible to us. Don't miss Him! And when you see Him, give Him the glory. He is worthy!


This is my centerpiece on my kitchen table. An African bowl with five sanddollars. It reminds me to pray for Africa...that they would see God for who He really is and the sand dollars remind me to praise Him that He alone is God and He hears our prayers even when we pray for a sand dollar!