Considering the Current of our Lives
Loaded down with four boogie boards, six beach towels, and enough sunscreen for an army, we hobbled our way to the sand. Already feeling the exhales of relief and excitement, our family selected from a bird’s eye view the perfect spot to set up for our day at the beach. We traveled 11 hours for this week of relaxation, had just overcome a week of sickness, and could not wait for the week of fun that lie ahead. Then, I spotted it: the double red flag.
“What does that mean, exactly?” I asked the life guard bracing myself for his response.
“It means there is a dry feet rule in effect, “ he said a little too nonchalantly for this mom on vacation.
“Dry feet rule?” I repeated with a slight inflection at the end, praying he would change his response a second later than his first.
“That’s right,” he continued. “No one is allowed to even step foot in the water. Dangerous rip currents today.”
Well that’s disappointing, but we still had five more days ahead of us”, I thought to myself as I walked away. The kids responded graciously to the new restrictions, and after their day one sunburns decided it was probably for the best anyway.
But then day three came, followed by four, five and six and those double red flags still flew high. Disappointments grew while my husband and I began to plot out other family adventures: golf, riding bikes, swimming, and movies. Each day we decided it was still worth going out to play in the sand unanimously determined to make memories without water. However, the crashing waves became a tantalizing tease reminding us of the fun we were missing.
Sitting there, I began to think about those rolling temptations, and what we see on the surface as they innocently crash to shore, giving off the air of relaxation. No doubt they drown out the noise of the outside world, and move any spectator into a trance of thought, but my reflections couldn’t help but be drawn deeper.
These two red flags warning of life-threatening currents were the only sign that danger lay under that water. How did they measure a rip tide anyway? Couldn’t we just stand ankle deep and feel the water against our sun baked skin? How do we measure the currents in our own lives?
It seems we, too, experience the rocking of waves and may become dangerously lulled by their constancy, that we forget the potential dangers that lay below the surface.
Maybe the waves of ease and financial stability rock us into complacency with a desire to build our own kingdoms of pleasure and accumulation, that we forget just below the surface there is a joy-threatening alternative identity growing with dependency on the things of this world.
Maybe the rocking waves of emotions, a failed marriage, abuse, or betrayal threaten to consume and take us completely under for good. Learning to ride the waves at this point feels downright exhausting, so we begin to contemplate ways to make them stop once and for all. Divorce, an affair, addiction, or suicide begin to feel like real options in an attempt to just make them stop.
Maybe the waves of anxiety and exhaustion continue to beat against the shoreline of your life, and you have become numb to the undercurrent of an over-committed life with pressure to constantly perform.
Whatever it is for you, now is the time to heed the warning. These waves in our lives are not formed on their own. There is usually something right under the surface that serves as an indicator of the need to take a step back and reassess.
“What is driving the current of my life?”
Is it my search for significance?
Is it my need for money or security?
Is it my desire for acceptance?
Is it my longing for survival?
Is it my pursuit of a comfortable life?
May I remind you of two truths that help me when I feel the undercurrent of my life is out of control and reaching dangerous levels?
There is One who controls the wind and the waves. All I have to do is ask Him to help me.
The only way to survive a dangerous current is to swim out of it and go a different direction.
God, thank you that “you rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.” (Psalm 89:9 ESV) Thank you that when we call to you, you can make the storm still, and the waves of the sea to be hushed. (Psalm 107:29) You “placed the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot pass over it.” (Jeremiah 5:22) May we no longer be “children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine,” but keep us steadfast in your Truth. (Ephesians 4:14). May the only undercurrent in our lives be the moving of the Holy Spirit and may the only waves be an outpouring of your work in our lives.
Amen.