Grains of sand

Any of you who have read my posts for a bit know I like math and science. I like to see how things work and add up. So after reading a couple of things in the Bible, I got curious.

I have a little 3 minute hourglass that I use when doing my stretching exercises. So I know how long to hold a certain position. In looking up how many grains of sand equals 3 minutes I found it was estimated to be between 2154 and 5235 grains, depending on the size of the grain.

This means 1 square meter of beach, down to a depth of 3millimeters should hold about 163 billion grains of sand. For those of us who do not use the metric system, 1 meter equals 3.280839895 feet.
I also found that the number of grains of sand in a gallon is 2,534,400. That’s a lot of grains!

In 1 Samuel 13, Saul became king and his son Jonathan attacked and defeated the garrison of Philistines at Geba. Well this made the Philistines mad, so they assembled to fight Israel, with 3000 chariots, 6,000 charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the shore. If just over 3 feet of beach contains 163 billion grains of sand, then that a whole lot of soldiers!

Well the Israelites saw their situation was critical and hard pressed, so they hid in cave and thickets among the rocks, and in pits and cisterns. Some even ran away. King Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear.

Saul was supposed to wait seven days for Samuel to show up to make an offering before the Lord. Seven days passed and more soldiers were running away, so Saul freaked out and demanded that the offering be brought to him and he would do it himself. Just as he was finishing, Samuel showed up. Busted! And that’s why the Lord took the kingdom away from Saul. For getting ahead of God and disobeying.

Fear can make people do stupid and crazy things. Living from a place of fear is destructive to you, your soul, and whomever you interact with. It is better to fear the Lord, live in awe and wonder of Him, than to fear what’s happening around you.

God cares more about us and His resources are unlimited to help us. That’s why God’s math is always better that the math of the world.

“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.” (Ps. 139:17-18 [ESV])

“I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.” (Gen. 22:17 [ESV])

“As the host of heaven cannot be numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured…” (Jer. 33:22 [ESV])

So why tremble in fear and run away from trouble? Fear will make you do something you will regret, and like Saul, keep you from the destiny God has planned for you. God loves us and thinks of us more than can be measured! He thinks of us as many times as all the sand in all the world! I mean even just over 3 feet of sand is 163 billion times, so I cannot even begin to fathom the number of all the times God thinks of us in a day.

All I can say is WOW!

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