Inside the Wave
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Psalm 121:5-85.
The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. 6. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. 7. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore.
Isaiah 43:1-31.
But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.
Can you even imagine God calling you by name? Not, “Hey, you!” but actually using your name, calling it out from Heaven. We might wonder why he would call out to us, but the Isaiah passage explains that very clearly. God made us and we are his. Of course he will call us by our name! But I don’t think he necessarily uses our given names. I wonder if he doesn’t whisper to us, “Beloved” or “Beautiful” or “Perfect One” or “Sweetheart.”
More than likely we don’t even know God is calling us to him because we are so busy and the world is so LOUD that we can’t hear him over the din. Television, radio, computers, blackberries and other technologies with which I have chosen to remain uninformed, drown out that sacred conversation. God know us because he created us. He understands and fulfills our needs, he provides us comfort, protection and reassurance through all the trials in our lives. Life is all too often seemingly out of control. God reminds us He has it all covered. He’s going to be there through it and then will wait for us on the other side of whatever we’re experiencing.
Have you ever stood at the breaker point of the waves in the ocean? Nine times out of ten we can dive under and into that huge wave approaching us and come out on the other side without a hitch. That tenth time, though, is the one that God is talking about through Isaiah. We dive in, but something goes terribly wrong; our feet are no longer on the sandy bottom; the sunlight disappears; we are tossed and turned and twisted, and often thrown up on beach. Experts will tell you the best thing to do in these situations is to just relax and allow the water to carry you to shore, since that’s where it’s headed anyway. That’s very logical advice as long as you’re not being picked up and spit out by an angry wave!
Life can be just like that point inside the wave where we have no control, no sense of up or down, no idea where the shoreline is, and sometimes we may even wonder if we’re drowning. God reassures us he will be there with us throughout every struggle in our lives. He made us and loves us so much he can’t stand to leave us alone when we’re in pain, experiencing sorrow, or struggling. He is even willing to ransom the whole world and already sacrificed his own son for us.
My prayer today is that when you find yourself floating inside the waves of life, out of control, and with no sense of direction, you allow God to take over. And that you rest in the promise that he will never leave us and never forsake us.
Mary
