Bone Digging for Ancient Treasure

Long before the Coosa Indians fished for catfish or hunted deer along the banks of the Ashley; even before the now extinct mammoth foraged for food in the open fields of the low country, a terror of unimaginable proportions swam and hunted prey in the waters covering lands where now cities, such as Charleston, bustle and small communities like our own Flowertown in the Pines now serenely showcase azaleas and crape myrtles. The oceans' answer to T-Rex literally surged just feet above my own backyard. The illustration top right is artist Karen Carr's rendition, from the Virginia Museum of Natural History, of the mighty Carcharodon Megalodon chasing two juvenile whales. These creatures would feed on whales, porpoises and just about anything brave, foolish or just unlucky enough to share its fondness for the warm coastal areas of the continent.

To give you an example of just how large these by-gone creatures of the deep actually were,

check out this graph, courtesy of Wikipedia, on the right . The li'l green fellow is our old nemisis from the 70's, Jaws; the little guy in front of him would be the equivalent of Captain Quint, and the red giant lurking in the back would be the ancient history of my own backyard otherwise known as "Meg." Now there is much of so-called scientific "fact" that I must admit I roll my eyes to, and place in the "until a more accurate fact emerges" category, but I do know one thing; this creature existed, and that it lived where I now sit even as I write this blog. God left us proof, and gave us a mighty cool hobby in the process.

Now that you know how awesome these guys were, maybe I won't seem as much the geek, that

I probably am, when I share my enthusiasm for them. Nathan and I have logged hundreds of hours scouring excavations,

"bone digging" as we call it, for the ancient remnants of these giants. We've found dozens of different kinds of shark teeth, great white, mako, tiger, goblin, and occasionally, the elusive meg tooth. We also find whale vertebrae, stingray barbs, aligator teeth and even rare indian artifacts on a couple of outings. Above you can see Nathan digging for fossils at a site not far from the Ashley River.

It's such a thrill to find a tooth still partially covered knowing you're the first human to ever lay eyes then hands on it. Here's one I found a couple of weeks ago. You can see part of the root sticking out, and you just don't know how much of the tooth has been preserved until you excavate. In this case, the entire tooth was perfectly fossilized.

On the right is just a small sampling of the treasures we've unearthed. Nathan gets a first hand science education, with a little adventure to boot. He's even found some fossils valuable enough to earn him a little money for his efforts. I have a growing museum of natural history, and a healthy hobby for my efforts, but any sunny afternoon spent treasure hunting with my son is already treasure found.

Psalms 24:1 "The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein."

Matthew 6:21 "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Listen to His Heart

What is your heart telling you? Listen to your heart! Follow your heart! Trust your instincts. Your heart holds the key, and so on.... I can't count how many times I've heard these well intended words. It sounds like sage advice, and is always portrayed as such in scores of sitcoms and movies. Picture the scene; a young woman is confused about two men...the one she's engaged to is stable, ambitious and maybe a little self-centered, the other is a bumbling, one pay check from homeless guy who looks suspiciously like Adam Sandler. Her dad loves the first, and hates the second, but the wise mom somehow knows the plot as well as we do. At the critical point, she steps in to advise the young lady with these words..."what is your heart telling you?" Of course we all know that Sandler gets the girl even if the other guy is perfect, not to mention, there first. And, of course her heart led her to true happiness. Sandler raises one eyebrow at the camera, gives a knowing smile...roll credits.

There's just one tiny little problem. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9 Can we even trust our own instincts? I'm afraid not. Proverbs 16:25 tells us that "there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." I can testify to this truth because there have been times when I've felt bitterly discouraged. In those times my heart has told me to despair, to give up, stay down...quit. Other times my heart has told me to throw caution to the wind, pursue vanity, and not let anyone get in the way of what I want. The times I've given an obedient ear to the demands of my own heart apart from God account for my portion of regrets.

What are we to do with a wicked heart? The Bible instructs us to first prepare our hearts to seek the Lord. In fact we are told in 2 Chronicles 12:14 that King Rehoboam "did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord." The flip side is that those who seek the Lord with all their heart...find Him. Jeremiah 29:13 assures of this with this promise, "and ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." For me this means that I have to lay down the desires of my heart, and instead seek after the desires of His heart. As you might imagine, pride wants its own way, and yielding to the still small voice of the Lord is no easy task. I find myself wanting to have it both ways; "God, I'll follow so long as You're going my direction." The simple truth is that I can't follow and lead at the same time. I can't simultaneously hang onto those old desires and seek Him with my whole heart. It just doesn't work that way. I'm finding out that, just as I had long feared, His desires rarely match my own, and His ways are not my ways. But the closer I get to His heart, the more I can see the rubbish that was my old heart.

To know the Lord is to know that He alone knows the right path to walk. Believing this is the beginning of trust. As the old hymn goes, T'is so sweet to trust in Jesus...oh for grace to trust Him more. This is my prayer, that as I trade my heart for His, God will fill me with greater trust, and when the path isn't clear, when I'm lost and confused, I can find my way by asking the simple question, "What is HIS heart heart telling me?"