I once heard the great preacher, Ern Baxter, talk about why we have such powerful language symbols. He said:
“God has ransacked all of nature, all of history, all events, all of creatures, relationships, and situations ... to come up with metaphors and similes and symbols and likenesses that He could use to communicate to us the various aspects of divine truth.”
No wonder the Bible, Aesop’s Fables, Virgil, C. S. Lewis, and others used ants, eagles, snakes, lions, horses, donkeys, and bees as models of behavior and wisdom for humans. Sometimes, we need to see examples from other species in order to detect our Creator’s signature.
Consider the sandfish, a small reptile that lives in the Sahara Desert and other parts of North Africa—places of deadly heat, predators, and drought.
Yet the sandfish is superbly suited to that environment. Its name reflects its way of pulling its legs close to its body to “swim” through sand, slipping beneath the surface to escape predators and find relief from the heat. Its wedge-shaped head allows it to dive quickly below the surface, while specialized eyelids and nostrils let it move through sand without damage or suffocation.
What it needs is always nearby.
Perhaps the central lesson the sandfish teaches is the wonder of adaptation. They don’t curse the sun, the sand, aridity, or predators; they adapt to reality. As ancient nautical wisdom says, “We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”
The anger and polarization of the current age try to persuade us that crowds will save us. If we can just convince enough people to march in the streets, hang scripted messages on social media, or give enough money, we can change the course of wind and water.
That is profoundly false.
Tides, light, seeds, fire, migratory patterns, survival instincts, the hidden movements of weather and history—these are the forces that carry real change. If so, humility, patience, and flexibility may serve us better than anger and conflict.
Human nature will always try to convince us that this place is just not right, that it needs fixing. It’s too hot, cold, wet, dry, Republican, liberal, indifferent, etc. And so, we organize, resist, and fight.
But thinking that way can be like buying lumber at Home Depot to build a tree. Planting a seed is better, but slower. That requires patience. But as James Carville said, “The best time to plant an oak tree was twenty-five years ago. The second best time is today.”
Perhaps the sandfish points us toward quieter truths: we have been given a place we did not choose; we are shaped by forces we do not control; we live in the wide open spaces of our constraints.
Within that ecosystem, we find new traction.
As we learn its rhythms.
As we move with its grain.
As we adapt rather than harden.
In doing so, we may—like the sandfish—discover our limitations have become portals of wisdom.
Years ago, I looked forward to receiving, along with my school board colleagues, the report of my Clifton “strengths.” Eagerly opening MY folder, guaranteed to reveal to me the secrets of what I had to offer this organization, I drew back ashamedly at my top strength: adaptability. Didn’t that mean I was wishy-washy, unable to stand for anything? A wise school board president read my reaction and addressed it with full-on discernment: “You are what we need most right now - someone who can help us swim the currents of changing policy and legislative environments and come through safely to a calmer place.” I didn’t know then about the sandfish, but this article nails the point the leader was making so many years ago and reinforces my gratitude to him.