Growing up in Southern California afforded me many unique opportunities as a child, especially in the seventies and eighties. It was an in-between time in America. The country stood on the precipice between peace, love, and happiness, and Reaganomics, sky-high interest rates, and power suits for women. As Californians we were definitely still basking in the glow of the hippie movement, and it overflowed even into the church scene.
During this season of our lives, our family attended church on the beach—Santa Monica Pier, Lifeguard Tower 12, to be exact. We would wear our swimsuits to church and pack a picnic lunch. After service we ate together as families and spent countless hours wading in the foam of the waves as they advanced ever closer to our “sanctuary” with the coming of high tide. It was always such a thrill to watch the local surfers ride the waves. Waiting for the swells to form, they would fearlessly paddle and instinctively, at the perfect moment, rise up on their surfboards, masters of the wave.
As children who spent every weekend at the ocean’s shore, we became more and more comfortable with the sea. We would venture farther out into the waves, feeling emboldened and confident in our ability to ride the surf as it rolled its way onto the shore. I even have the honor of having been baptized in the Pacific Ocean, bodybuilder in tow to break the waves and protect me from their ceaseless pounding.
I distinctly remember the first time I felt brave enough to venture farther out from the water’s edge. Out past the foam of the waves, where they break on the shore and gently glide up to the edge of the sand. It was so calm past the break. Just a gentle swell and roll, the place before the waves took form, where it was peaceful and calm. I drifted on my back, far beyond where my feet could touch, and swam through the water, confident in my ability to stay afloat. It seems like what happened next was just a split second that caught me off guard, but in reality it was a pattern that was set in place since the beginning of creation. The waves began to gain strength. What had, a moment before, felt like a safe place to rest on the surface of the water, became a place of churning turmoil. I could feel the pull of the water, answering its call to nature, drawing me farther and farther out. Past where I could feel solid ground. Past where I could see the shore, past where my voice could carry to the shore with my cry for help. The undercurrent tugged at my legs as I fought the rising bitter taste of panic. Then, as the waves crashed over me, rolling me with them again and again, I found that if I stopped fighting the waves and allowed them to carry me, my feet could once again find their footing. Digging my toes deep into the sand, I pushed my head above the rolling foam and took a deep breath, the panic receding as the shoreline came into focus. What had seemed like time standing still, as I fought to stay afloat, really was just moments.
We forget that He is always with us, that He has never left us. That He is the Master of all that was, and is, and is to come.
We see a similar picture painted in Luke 8.
Now on one of those days Jesus and His disciples got into a boat, and He said to them, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” So they launched out. But as they were sailing along He fell asleep; and a fierce gale of wind descended on the lake, and they began to be swamped and to be in danger. They came to Jesus and woke Him up, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And He got up and rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and they stopped, and it became calm. And He said to them, “Where is your faith?” They were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?” (Luke 8:22–25 NASB)
The disciples were confident in their boat; many were fisherman who had spent a lifetime at sea, and they were in the presence of Jesus, the Creator of the very water they sailed on. What should they fear? And yet, when Jesus fell asleep, and the winds began to toss them on the waves, they immediately feared they would perish! Isn’t that what we often do? We become confident in our own abilities and knowledge. We are walking confidently on the shores of our life, with our Savior. Yet, the moment we venture out into the waves of our lives, to the place where we stop hearing His voice, to those deep hidden areas where we can’t feel solid ground and the waves begin to toss us about, we cry out in fear, “I am perishing, Lord!” “Where are You, God, why have You abandoned me?” We forget that He is always with us, that He has never left us. That He is the Master of all that was, and is, and is to come.
David the psalmist said, “He set my feet on solid ground” (Psalm 40:2 NLT). Can we have faith when it seems that wave after wave is pulling us from our sure footing in Christ, that He has not left us? Do we believe He is with us, asking us to have faith that He commands the winds and churning waters of our lives to be calm? That when we have lost our footing, and the deep undercurrents of pain that we all experience are driving us further and further from the comfort of shore, He hears our cries and will return us to solid ground? Have faith that God, who spoke into being the mighty oceans that have pounded sandy shores since the beginning of creation, is the same God who created you! He is there to rebuke the waves that seek to separate you from Him and to place you on the solid ground of His grace and peace!