It’s the end of month 6, I’m at our squad debrief in Swakopmund Namibia and I’m sat at the beach. The hostel were staying at is a 5 minute walk behind me, it’s about 0730 and the only thing on my schedule is sitting with Jesus and watching the waves.
Ipod forgotten, I sit and listen to the crash of the waves on the rocks of the shoreline. I watch the waves roll in again and again, rushing over the rocks to meet the smooth sand beyond. Such beauty, such peace.
The waves can seem so fierce at first, but they smooth and clean the surface, pulling away anything that shouldn’t be left on the surface, making it new, pristine. Washing away any mark left on it by the world. Christ’s renewal of us is like the waves, yes once he has washed us clean of sin we are as white as snow. We are a perfect, untouched stretch of sand, smooth and free of any blemish. But it’s not just like a clean slate that he then ignores, his renewal is like the waves of the sea crashing over us every second of everyday, smoothing the surface, washing us clean. With every wave he is making us more like him, smoothing, moulding, and removing things. The forming power of the sea is like Christ changing us, we’re always changing and we may never be finished. But just as the sea never fails to send waves to the shore, Christ will never stop making us new.
Christ never does a half job, it’s never incomplete, once he has saved us, once we are born with him, we are never the same. We’re like a rock that’s been thrown into the midst of the sea, being thrown and carried by the waves and the current. Each rock is different however, it responds in it’s own way to the power of the sea. Some are easily guided, moulded and changed by the sea. Some are like the boulders at the shore; we sit on the edge, half in half out, being submerged at times of high tide, but still close enough to the edge to see dry land, to still see and be part of the world. These rocks are solid, firm, longstanding, but the sea doesn’t ignore them because they’re not all in. It’s still crashing over them, smoothing their edges, submerging them, drawing them close. Jesus never gives up on someone because they weren’t ‘all in’, he’s desperate for you to be ‘all in’, so he’s not going to give up trying after a certain amount of time. He’s calling out to us all, desperate to draw us close into the relationship he has for us.
It’s not just the power of the waves that catch my attention on this morning, but that although they hold the power, the power isn’t contained just in the waves. Often waves are full of stones, maybe more worn and much smaller than the one on the shore, but with the power of the wave they can be used to break down the rough edges of the big stone. They can cause an impact far larger than their size would suggest.
Some rocks are small and get washed away by the current, they get carried deep into the sea, being easily moulded and changed. Never looking back at the world again, diving head first, trusting, obedient, it goes wherever the current takes it. No fear, full of faith, and spirit led, as we are called to be. As the edges of the rock are smoothed it’s like us being made more like Christ, he’s taking away the pain, the habits, the defences, the comfort mechanisms, that make us more like the world and less like Him. We’re not all going to experience this in the same way, were all different, we’ve been through different things. We are all going to change at different rates, and the ways in which we embody Christ best will be different in all of us. We’re never perfect, but we can always be used if we’re willing.
If I threw a small rock against a huge boulder on the beach, nothing would change at all. But imagine that same rock within a wave of the sea. All of a sudden it is more powerful, it has more strength and more purpose, and it’s not working alone anymore. There are other little stones in that wave too, and there’s the wave, the water itself, the effect is so much more prominent now. But even so, it will not be an instant change, it’s cumulative. We’re growing, learning and changing every day. We can and will be used by God to influence others, not because we’re better or because we know more but because were different to each other. Within Christ we have the power to make a change, when we are willing to be guided by Him. When we surrender our semblance of control that we try to keep by clinging to the shore, we become more powerful in Christ.
The small stone is mighty when it submits to the will of the waves, the power stored in their mighty crashes. But the boulder outside the waves is relying on it’s own strength to remain the same, to remain stable and steady and rooted in the world. The way the waves reach out and crash over them is like Christ calling and reaching out for the lost, He’s always calling, He’s always there. But we’re just too scared to allow ourselves to be carried by the sea. Even Christians can be boulders in the sea, deep deep at the bottom, knowing Christ, loving him, changing and growing with Him, but not fully surrendering to him so you sit still. He will still work on your life with you, you can still grow and change. But not as quickly or as fully as you would if you let go of the idea that we are in control of our lives. He has a plan so much greater for us than just sitting at the bottom of the ocean, so let the waves take you there.
