Sea Slugs

I love shows about our planet. Whether it’s the Discovery channel’s mind-blowing series “Planet Earth” or the more recent documentary “Life” or even the ever popular, old school PBS show “Nova”, I love to see creatures and places I never even knew existed. Not to mention providing me with random and bizarre facts to throw around in my everyday conversations: Kangaroos can kick harder than Mike Tyson can punch? Interesting! Proving or disproving that assertion could be a VH1 reality-show right there.

There are so many amazing things taking place every single day in the natural world that we miss out on. Thankfully some of those incredible events are being recorded by some crazy-obsessed scientists and cameramen who, apparently, are willing to hold perfectly still in a tree stand for weeks in order to get two minutes of footage of a rare bird. God bless those psychos.

So you can understand my excitement when I received an email from my lovely wife Leah telling me about the amazing and fascinating world of deep sea slugs. She had stumbled across an article that explained what/how these beautiful and rare creatures existed in the bowels of the raging ocean. The pictures in the article about these slugs were just stunning. They glow and shine with brilliant neon palates that caused me to “ooh “and “aah” like a kid touring a candy factory. This followed by a stunning revelation: sea slugs are blind. So these absolutely gorgeous creatures that we’ve made into desktop backgrounds don’t even know about the splendor they posses – instead they sense the world around them through chemical sensors and their limited sense of touch.

At first I thought this was a cruel tragedy. How could beings of such beauty never fully comprehend how unique and amazing they are? My second thought was that Christians are just like deep sea slugs.

How many people do I know that are claiming to be followers of Christ and yet still feel that they are ugly, unworthy, stupid, or not deserving of love? How many times have I myself felt unqualified and become overwhelmed with expectations that I thought were set too high? It’s like we don’t even understand the reality that we have been redeemed by the most power, awesome, and creative force the universe has ever seen. This sea slug issue has made me wonder what Christ sees when he looks at us. I wonder if our five senses limit what we can perceive about ourselves and I wonder if Jesus just smacks His hand on his face when we think that we’re anything less than a beautiful child, chosen and adopted by the best dad ever.

The Apostle Paul says it this way:

For while we are in this tent (our bodies), we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight… For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:4-7, 14-17)

May Christ continue to remind you this morning of what He sees when he looks at you… even if you can’t see it for yourself.