THE WAVE SESSIONS: SOMEWHERE
Sometimes following God feels a lot like looking at the ocean.
The sea is vast, and both ends are never in sight at once.
We can see down the coastline, the ships close to the shore, but we cannot see across the blue surf to the other side. The weight and sheer size of the sea is too much for us to fathom or fully understand, and if lost in the middle of it, how much more so? Sometimes with God we are on the shore, our place secure and clear. We see the waves colliding with where we are and it makes sense. But other times we find ourselves lost on the high seas, in the middle of an endless, monotonous ocean, no shore in sight. These places make us beg for chaos, where on the shore we begged for calm tides.
When the waves are still, what are you to do? If you had a paddle and you started paddling away, you would only exhaust yourself. If you had an electric motor, it would eventually run out on you, and where would you find fuel? Sometimes the only place we can be is exactly where we are. Sometimes we have to trust God and recognize that, like the waves, he will move us when the time is right.
We have all had that moment of standing on the shore, knee deep in the salty water. You are simply watching the waves come and go. You aren’t planning to go with them, and they don’t seem to be taking you anywhere at all. But give it some time and you will look around you to find that you have drifted from where you once stood, that everything was shifting around you the entire time even though you didn’t realize it.
Nothing we can do will change the direction of a wave. Our actions will cause a splash for sure, but that wave isn’t stopping. It has a direction and a purpose defined by circumstances beyond us, beyond what we can see. If we have positioned and submitted ourselves to be where God has called us, we won’t be going anywhere until he does. And at the same time, we have this blessed assurance that we do not have to. God isn’t a lake or a pond; his purposes will not grow stagnant. We do not have to separate ourselves from him in order to grow, to be successful, or to see ourselves go somewhere new. He is just like the waves. Sometimes we will see and understand exactly how he is moving. Other times it will feel as though there is nothing happening. But just like the waves, God is constantly moving among us, even when we don’t see or feel it. Give it time and you will look back and see that you are not where you used to be.
The middle of an endless sea is sometimes the best place and the easiest place to just rest in where God has us, in what he is doing. Don’t waste away the waves.
Be where you are, because I assure you that in time, you won’t be in that same place.