Thoughts from the Sea

Last week, I had opportunity to sit in the warm waves of the Gulf of Mexico with my granddaughter Elizabeth. Every morning Elizabeth swore to each of us that while she was “going to the beach,” she was not going to “swim at the beach.” Actually, Elizabeth doesn’t yet swim anywhere. She meant she was not planning to get in the water; she would play in the sand, but the water hurt her eyes. Each morning we agreed: don’t get in the water if you don’t want, but certainly come to the beach. She would nod. Yet, each morning before the carloads of supplies were fully unloaded onto the sand, Elizabeth ran into the water. The allure of the waves seemed to call her name, and she couldn’t resist their beckoning.

Elizabeth is only three, however; she will be four in a couple of weeks. And even if she were a swimmer, she would not be strong enough to deal with the waves of the sea. So each morning when she ventured out toward the surf, one of us followed. It was often me. I would take her hand and together we would walk into the water until the waves reached just above her knees (not very far) and we would sit together, tossed and turned, talking and laughing, both of us pondering in our own ways the motion of the sea.

As I sat in the water, holding little Elizabeth tightly in my lap, our backs to the waves, the variety in the swells caught my attention. Certainly some of the ocean’s waves merely roll past, a rise and fall of water. Yet even on the calmest shore, waves gather momentum. Some cap, others do not; but even those that cap bear variety. In my attempts to protect her eyes, I tried to keep at least one of my own focused on the waves, an attempt to anticipate their force. But I was tricked at first. Some that had capped with vigor just a few feet behind us seemed only to wash over us, devoid of the anticipated force. Others that capped in exactly the same fashion crashed into us with such strength that only the most determined concentration allowed us to remain in our place.

That’s when I began to understand the power of the undertow—the force that pulls the waves back out to sea thus acting in obedience to God’s command: “You may come this far, but no further.” Like the waves, the undertow moves in and out. When it moved in, the waves could crash into my back with seemingly unrestrained force—as if even in the shallow waters on the beach, all the power of the sea were moving in one direction. But when the tide changed, the deepest water—that nearest the ocean floor—began to revert, moving against the incoming wave with enough authority to suck the water back out to sea; the wave’s crashing power overcome.

Truly, life is not a beach. But perhaps life under the power and authority of God is not so different. The one who commands the waves will also orchestrate life. In the seemingly unpredictable tides of life, there remains an undertow of control, a force strong enough to not only tame the waves, but to design them. Life jerks us out of any attempt to control our own destiny. Life’s surges can offer mornings sitting in the surf with a child tucked protectively under one’s arm or thrilling moments when one might ride the waves, but they also produce hurricanes and tsunamis when the power of the sea seems to reign unrestrained and uncontrollable. How might we justify such a disparity?

Perhaps we miss the point. Left to human power and understanding, the waves and the sea are uncontrollable! But there is One whose authority dominates creation, One who imagined it all and formed it all. What if the only response is to rest there, in the power and authority of God, allowing the undertow of Will to reign? What if a connection to that safe place is the only answer?

Yes, the waves can be dangerous! But without the crashing waves, the beach would be only a scorching and unproductive dessert. Barry’s mom even noted the similarity as we neared the coast—the barren landscape stretching out before us with only little and low vegetation. The water, uncontrollable as it may be, calls us to the beach, cooling the coastal breezes and evaporating just above the horizon, blurring the definition between the water and sky, the earth and the heavens. And life is like that, too, a veritable smorgasbord of experience.

When I am near the beach, just the sound of the ocean, that audible struggle between the crashing waves and the authoritative undertow, possesses a power to still my last frayed nerve, to calm my spirit. Thus despite the heat I will open windows and doors, sit outside on patios and decks, walk along shore, or build sand castles all morning in the relentless sun to partake of its therapeutic offering. Like Elizabeth I too awoke each morning, thinking that perhaps I might skip the beach that day. But like Elizabeth I also went there each morning—along with Eleanor, Asa, and Peyton, their parents Shane and Kara and Jo and Brent, their Uncle Zach and Granbarry and great-grandmother Granbe—and the three carloads of things we would need to exist there. Why? Because anything that calms the spirit so effectively eventually wins me over.

And so it is with the Lord. Existing on the beach of life requires camping near the Maker. So I look for the moments when I might come to know Him better. Like a trip to the beach, not everything about arranging those moments seems enjoyable. There are any number of packages that must come along, be carried over the dunes of everyday life toward the water in order to enjoy the soothing ebb and flow of its tides. But I go, and when I don’t, I miss the unspoken instruction of the waves, God’s claim that only Authority will rule chaos.