I’m a lake girl. I grew up learning to swim in a lake in Wisconsin that was big and deep and dark blue and often the wind whipped the waves into a frenzy. But it was a place I felt safe, treading water or diving under into the silent calm beneath the surface.
Friday I was not on a lake, but by the Pacific Ocean.
I walk along the beach wrapped the early morning air, cool and damp. The spray of crashing waves reaches out to tickle me every once in awhile. Fog shrouds the mountains encircling the bay, making them look like a watercolor painting or a dream – fuzzy in the distance.
My prayer is one common to me on my walks.
“Lord, what do you have to teach me about myself and Yourself today?”
There’s rarely an immediate answer, but rather, like an old-school photo developing in a water tray, something gradually emerges.
Usually.
I’m encouraged by this promise as I walk:
“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3
Sometimes the picture that develops is heart-warming… encouraging. Sometimes it’s convicting.
Sometimes it feels profound, but often, like today, it’s just a series of small reminders as I reflect on the power of the ocean before me.
The Lord whispers, “You can let the waves wreck you or refine you.”
Lord, how powerful is your love!
The waves of Your grace relentlessly pour over me like the tide coming in.
Help me not to resist the waters of Your correction that smooth my rough edges like polished sea glass on the shore.
Your faithfulness teaches me I can remain safe in storms.
Do you not realize who I am? Do you not fear Me? Do you not shake in the presence of the Eternal, the Creator of all things?
It is I who has drawn for all time the boundaries of the sea.
The waves may crash and roar against the sand, But the waters do not cross the lines I have drawn. Jeremiah 5:22 (Voice)
“God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him. We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in seastorm and earthquake, Before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains. Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.” Psalm 46:1-3
When we are mature – attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ – “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” Ephesians 4:14 (NIV)
What are you learning about yourself and God today?
