For decades, turtles have been an inspiration to me because they take their homes with them wherever they go. I see them as indicative of the spiritual fact that God gives His ideas all that they need wherever they may find themselves. To me, turtles represent completeness, wholeness, and satisfaction. Because my friends know how much I love these symbolic animals, I’ve been given quite a collection of plush, ceramic, stone, and metal turtles of all kinds, all of which are precious to me. I often take one with me when I travel to remind me that I’m just as complete as any turtle!
Many Bible characters caught glimpses of their inherent completeness, finding they had what they needed along the way as they turned to and trusted God’s providence. Moses and the children of Israel were given enough water to assuage their thirst, as well as manna enough to feed them for 40 years in the wilderness (see Numbers 20:7–11 and Exodus 16:35). Elijah showed the widow that she actually had an abundance of what she needed, even though she believed she and her son were about to starve (see I Kings 17:9-16). And when Christ Jesus told us to “be … perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), he used the original Greek word for perfect, meaning, in part, “wanting nothing necessary to completeness” (see Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible).
I’ve loved this idea of completeness for years, and I’ve recently had many chances to test it for myself. One major opportunity occurred when, after living in a beautiful location for more than 30 years, I married a man from a different part of the United States and moved.
