The Blessing of Sand in Your Shorts

Y’all ever been to the beach, and gotten sand in your shorts? Or have you been walking around with something in your shoe? It’s irritating, isn’t it? The truth is, life is full of irritations. Most of us have SOMETHING every day that just kind of rubs us the wrong way. Sometimes those things are small and sometimes they are very big, unwieldy, and inconvenient. The irritations will most likely always be there, but the impact they have on our lives hinges on how we choose to deal with them.

We have daily interactions with other people while we are at work or school, or just out and about. We interact with our coworkers, clients, and management. Or maybe it’s a receptionist when you are trying to make an appointment, another driver while you are on the road, a waitress or cashier where you are having a meal, staff at your child’s school or the doctor’s office or the gas station. We have countless encounters with folks around us every week. And let’s be honest, not ALL of those interactions are pleasant. They can be downright frustrating or even angering. Sometimes people just act ugly (as we say in the south) or sometimes there are simply misunderstandings that come up. That’s life. It’s part and parcel of the human condition. You can’t control how other people behave, but the TRUTH is that HOW YOU REACT to these irritations says MUCH more about YOU then it says about the person you may be dealing with. Proverbs 19:11 tell us that “A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.” Are you giving grace to the people around you? Are you being kind, even if others are not? (And I am SOOOOO talking to myself here, y’all. Anybody that has been around me very long knows that my default is usually biting sarcasm. So this is something the Lord has been dealing with me about for a while.)

No doubt we have all heard the story of how an oyster deals with the grains of sand, parasites, bits of debris, and other invaders that find their way inside its shell. The making of the pearl is actually a defense mechanism for the oyster. Instead of letting those rough grains make sore spots and cause wounds or damage, the oyster takes the irritation and covers it with a substance called nacre. It puts layers and layers and layers of this stuff on the thing that has entered its shell. And after all that work, the assailant that broke into the oyster to cause destruction or harm doesn’t become a common old rock. It doesn’t become a discarded pile of sand that the oyster just spits out later. It becomes A PEARL. Something that is not only beautiful, but valuable.

So the bottom line is this: we can let the grit and the irritations and frustrations of life – the sand in our shorts – cause raw spots and wounds OR we can be like the oyster and cover those things with layers of grace, mercy, kindness, gentleness, and the blood of Jesus, until they become PEARLS! And just like with the oyster, in reality, it’s a defense mechanism. If we act with kindness and patience, in the end, it is a benefit for us as well as those around us. Whereas if we act out of anger or frustration, it only cultivates an atmosphere of animosity and causes a root of bitterness that is harmful to us. Proverbs 29:11 says, “Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end.”

Ultimately, we can try to learn something from our situation, and use that irritation and grit to polish us and shape us. Or, we can get angry and upset because we are having to deal with inconveniences. But if we instead consider these annoyances of life, opportunities to grow and to show mercy to those around us, well, it’s the irritations that, in the end, make us more beautiful and valuable.

Micah 6:8 ESV   He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

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