SHIFTING SANDS May 11 Bible Reading: Psalm 90:1-4 Before the mountains were created, before you made the earth and the world, you are God, without beginning or end. Psalm 90:2 THE SANDS OF a desert are constantly changing. Sand dunes sometimes move across the desert like large, lumbering beasts; the wind blows against them, and they lose sand on one side and gain it on another—constantly shifting, changing, moving. A dune may grow to a height of five or six hundred feet and later disappear. Sometimes the desert sands drift over farmlands, covering the fields and destroying crops. Sometimes the sands blow across a small city or town and fill its streets and alleys; some ancient towns have been buried beneath sand for hundreds of years. The shifting sands of a desert can make travel difficult, even impossible. A cart or wagon cannot roll through the deep sands. Horses will soon become exhausted trying to step through shifting dunes, often sinking chest-deep. Humans trying to walk in desert sands often take a step or two forward before sliding a step or two back. It is easy to get lost in a sandy desert, too, because the landscape is constantly changing. Dunes look different on one side than they do on the other, and the shape of the terrain can change in a matter of hours. The shifting sands of a desert can be dangerous. The same is true of shifting opinions and ideas about what’s right and what’s wrong. You see, some people think that they can decide what’s right or wrong. “The way I see it,” they say, “such-and-such is wrong.” Or “I don’t think it would be so wrong to do so-and-so.” They may decide that a thing they thought was wrong last week is OK today. They may figure that something is OK for them to do, even though it would be wrong for someone else to do it to them.
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