"On Finding Shark Teeth"

Dear WRC,

A few weeks ago, Sam, I, and the kids had the wonderful gift of spending a week in Juno Beach, FL. Over the first few days we spent plenty of hours on the beach soaking in the sun (read: trying not to get burned), looking for interesting seashells, and doing some rudimentary boogie boarding in the surf. Then, halfway through our trip, we ran into some friends in North Palm Beach who happened to mention to the kids that if you know where to look there were shark teeth to be found all over those beaches. That changed the trajectory of the next few days.

Searching for shark teeth can be hard work. It demands patience, time, and dedication to the task. We started with a few tips: look for the black triangle, look in the shell beds, and if the tide is right the waves will be a big help—turning over the shells and giving the teeth a sheen. It was enough to get us going.

It took a while to find the first tooth. I’d love to say that after that they came in spades, but they just didn’t. It took a lot of work to find each tooth. It took time I might have rather spent doing something else. It took perseverance against the eyestrain, scouring the mix of shells that littered the beaches after several storms. There was a constant temptation to space out, to look away, to walk on down the beach and give up on this patch—or altogether. But we worked, and worked, and worked, and then one of us would exclaim with joy, “I found one!” or “Come, look at this one!” Each discovery was a gift, totally unexpected even with all the work we’d put in. Then each new discovery would push us back into the work with greater resolve, renewed energy and focus.

It’s possible to just stumble upon a shark tooth while strolling the beach. Some people even happen upon them more often than most. Everyone will probably find one at some point, but then there are those who train their eyes, discipline their bodies, wake early and go out for the hunt. I’ve heard they can find hundreds. The work, the discipline, it’s all training them, preparing them, to receive those gifts in greater abundance than any of the rest of us thought possible.

Could it be that discipline is all about tuning our hearts to receive the living, holy fire of God, the greatest of all gifts? Everyone stumbles upon small pieces of God now and then—bits of excess, glory, and grace, whether or not they know what to call them—but if you want God in abundance, that takes patience, determination, hard work, obedience. It’s tempting to look away, to give up and go do something else, to take the small glimmer you might catch by accident here or there and call it enough. But if we’re willing to keep at it, slowly we train our eyes. Slowly we learn to see it. We may work and work, but it is never not pure gift when the holy one appears again.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy