The ups; the beach, the food, the culture . 

The downs, traffic, honking horns and people expressing their anger with their vehicles. 

The story that comes to my mind as I write this is a situation that I saw at Huntington Beach with my friends a couple of weekends ago. I was sitting on the beach asking God to teach me something. 

I looked out over the ocean and caught a glimpse of a girl and what I guessed to be her father playing with her by the waves. The two were throwing a beach ball back and forth for quite some time. The father seemed to be enjoying himself until the girl did something that I did not plan on seeing. She became bored with their game. The father threw the ball at her , she didn’t even try to catch it , instead she ignored the father, and walked over to the waves . 

This is where my attention perked up. The father waited for her.  Yes, he didn’t go away after the rejection of his daughter, he stayed and waited. The fascinating thing is that he watched her , patiently and carefully. She walked over to the wet ground near the water and began to walk into the water. Eventually she was hit by a wave and she came running back to her father. The father then picked up their ball and walked up the sand burm to their beach towel and sat down. 

Ok , I love watching people, but this caught my attention in so many different ways. One , the girl lost interest. There are so many times in our lives that we lose interest in God. We become distracted by events and troubles in our lives that we forget that an all powerful and loving God just wants to spend time with us. Think about that. He just wants to “play with us”. He watches and lives to hear you talk to Him. 

Like the father did with the child , he spent time with his child . What they were doing was safe and guided by the father . When the daughter lost interest , the father didn’t. Isn’t that true with us? We lose interest with God because we see something new and exciting to do and we just end up getting hit by a wave of confusion , fear and disillusionment . Why?, you ask. Because we left the "spending time" part of our relationship with Jesus .

 If you get hit by a wave, run back on shore. I promise you our Heavenly Father waits patiently to dry you off. 

I John 3:1 “ See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.