“Stay back from the sea lions!” The rangers called out again and again through a bullhorn from the top of the bluff. No one listened. Down in the cove at La Jolla, the crowd kept pressing closer for selfies next to a sea lion. I sat down on the sand at a distance, eye level with the sea lions instead of the people, to let my long lens do the work. Then someone stepped right in front of my camera with a phone out, and then another, and another, every time I lined up a shot. The rangers kept calling. The crowd kept creeping closer.
These sea lions spend most of their lives in the ocean, and they come up onto the sand to rest and warm up. But on this beach, the crowd would not let them rest. Sometimes the sea lions got angry, and I did not blame them. I would get tired of people getting in my face for a picture too. Although the sea lions were wild and free, they could not find freedom from the crowd. It did not take long for the people on that beach to become the bad guys in my story, and for my patience to run out.
The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. Psalm 103:8
God is slow to get angry. I was not. I grabbed my camera gear, climbed the stairs off the beach, and walked around to the other side of the cove. Along the way, I could see how I fall short of God’s compassion, and it broke my heart. I want so much to be more like God, and there I was, being so much like me. Oh, how long will it take for me to change?
As I kept walking, I found more sea lions that had come up out of the water to rest on the bluff. When a space opened in the crowd, I sat down on the low retaining wall to rest too. I had been swimming through one busy day after another, pulled in so many directions. I thought I was still listening for God’s whisper, but with a hundred thoughts racing through my head about everything I still needed to get done, I was not really listening at all. No wonder I had run out of patience back on that beach.
I sat there, breathing in the ocean scent I love—hoping for God to touch my heart. And yet my pattern of busyness came right along with me, that habit of trying to do too many things at one time. Even sitting still, I found myself quickly trying to take in every detail on that bluff at once. A pup that seemed to have lost his mother got up from beside one sea lion and moved away, as if he knew this was the wrong place, and then two sea lions started arguing, and then my eyes jumped to a pile of sea lions lying on top of one another, and my camera jumped right along with them. I always say I am looking for the story to photograph, but that afternoon, I was randomly pointing and shooting, never staying with any one thing long enough to see what was really happening. As a result, I lost track of the one story I needed to see most.
That was when one of the sea lions started coming closer. He moved across the bluff toward me, slow and steady, as if he wanted me to see something. Then the light glinted off a thin fishing line hanging down his chest, and I followed the line up to a hook lodged in the corner of his mouth. That sea lion was as wild and free as any creature on that bluff, and still he was caught.
I will never know how that hook found him. Maybe he was hungry and went after the bait, never seeing the hook hidden inside. Or maybe he took the easy way, a fish already caught on someone’s line, a meal he did not have to work for. However that hook found him, getting hooked was the easy part. Getting free would not be. The hook is always hidden inside something that looks enticing, or even needed. My habit of doing too many things at once hooks me that way. Every item on my list looks needed, and every item feels like a priority. Once I am hooked, I am always working harder, and my list still never gets shorter.
The sea lion stopped not far from the wall and looked straight at me. I cannot describe that look any other way: it was as if he were asking me to take the hook out. I wanted to. Everything in me wanted to set that sea lion free. But there is no walking up to a sea lion that size, likely several hundred pounds, and offering to remove a hook from his mouth.
While I watched, another sea lion came alongside and tugged at the fishing line with its mouth, as if it were trying to help. The tug only hurt him. The hooked sea lion pulled back, away from his friend and away from the help. That hook would need a specialist, someone who knew how to capture the sea lion and hold him still long enough to remove the hook safely.
After one more pleading glance, the sea lion moved on, the fishing line still hanging down his chest. As much as I wanted to help him, I was not the one who could. There are some things I cannot do for myself either, and removing my own hooks is one of them. My busy habit is a hard hook to see, because the things on my list really do need to get done. But the list was never the hook. The hook is believing that everything on my list has to come first, before I can stop and be still with God.
I have access to the best Specialist of them all, but will I let God remove my hook? To remove a hook, God has to capture me. Not trap me, the way a net traps, but capture me the way love does. I may come close to God, but before God can reach the hook, I am already up and on to the next thing on my list, the way that sea lion moved on. I do not want to move on with my hook anymore. When everything on my list comes before God, the order is wrong, and nothing gets done well.
Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. Matthew 6:33
Seeking above all else was exactly what that pup was doing. I found him again, the little guy who seemed to have lost his mother, and this time I did not let him out of my sight. He was still searching, lying down beside one sea lion after another and trying to cuddle close. Most of them never responded. A few looked at him, and others simply turned away. More than once, I thought he had finally found his mom, until he got up and moved on again. The pup wanted his mother and would not settle for anything less. Sometimes, between one sea lion and the next, he would stop and stare. I caught one of those moments through my lens, and the look on his face reached right inside me. In that look I saw something I recognized: the feeling of being lost, and the quiet refusal to give up anyway.
Watching that little pup, I finally saw myself. Every task on my list had become another sea lion to lie down beside. I had been trying to find rest in getting things done, close enough to feel busy and productive, but none of it was home. He knew the difference. Just like his mama, God has been here the whole time. And just like that pup, I can still get separated, especially when I settle for everything else first.
This little pup kept searching until he found his real mama, and the two of them met nose to nose, whisker to whisker, with no space left between them. When I look at my photo of that moment now, I do not only see a mother and her pup. I see God reaching down to me, a God with a beating heart, close enough to touch.
Later, I found out why they went nose to nose. A mother sea lion knows her own pup by scent, and the two of them breathe each other in, up close. That pup finding his mama, that closeness, whisker to whisker – that was the whisper God wanted to give me. On the beach, I had asked how long it would take me to change. Maybe change does not come from trying harder. Maybe it comes from staying close. The closer I stay to God, the more I carry God’s scent instead of my own. I want to be whisker close to God, too.
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28
The sea lion with the hook came close and moved on. The pup came close and stayed. Both of them were moving that afternoon, but only one was moving toward home. My list will be waiting tomorrow, pulling at me to put it first. God never pulls like that. God waits for me to come close. So that is my choice, every day, right in the middle of everything that needs to get done – I choose, to come close, and to stay.
So wherever you are today, whatever hook you have been carrying up out of the water, whatever has left you feeling separated, do not settle for close enough. God’s whisper is heard best up close. Join me there, whisker close.
P.S. Since this lands in the month of Thanksgiving, I want to say how grateful I am for you, for every reader who shares these whispers with me. Most of all, I am thankful for a God who never stops reaching for us, whisker close.