You make me brave

If you've been to the ocean recently, I'm sure you would agree when I say there's just something enchanting about it. Calming and peaceful, yet incredibly powerful, teeming with life and things undiscovered. It draws something out of the watcher, which is one of the reasons we spent this year's Yom Kippur (the day of atonement) at the beach. We took a friend, and while we watched the surf swell and crash into the rocks, we meditated through the prayer book. At the end, when we were asking God to inscribe us in the book of life for another year, we went out and met the waves, focusing on Micah 7:19, "You will again have compassion on us, you will tread our sin underfoot and hurl all of our iniquity into the depths of the sea." We were a little nervous, because the waves were coming in strong, and reaching much further than they had been, all the way to where we were sitting on a rock ledge. The one time I walked out with our son, the waves hit him chest high (he's a mere 32 inches tall) and knocked him backwards, and if I had let go of his hand, he would certainly have been washed out to sea. Given that was the case, my husband took his hand, and led him out to the waves, to symbolically wash away his sin, and let it be carried away, into the expansive unknown. With chest high waves crashing into him, our little one firmly gripped my husband's hand, and stayed perfectly still. My friend then said lowly, "Hold my hand, Daddy. I can be brave when I'm with you."

I know she was pointing out a touching father/son moment so that I would take a picture, but I immediately thought of the song "You make me brave" by Bethel. We've sung that song often at church, and I think we've used it to romanticize the idea of going beyond the safe shore of life and meeting God in the waves, knowing that it'll be His love crashing over us as we venture into the unknown. I thought of the disciples as they bailed water out of their boat in Mark 4, while someone went and woke Jesus, asking, "Don't you care that we're drowning?!" The waves in that scene did not feel like love, but like utter abandonment, that Jesus could sleep at a time when the boat was on the verge of breaking apart and threatening to leave them all lost at the bottom of this lake. I also thought of Peter, who at Jesus request, walked on water. But then he saw the wind, and wind on a lake makes waves, and as the water moved under him, in an unsteady and unstable fashion, Peter became afraid, started to sink, and cried out for Jesus to save him. (Matthew 14) The waves here were uncertainty, and Peter was too far out to save himself from it. 

We can relate to the disciples in these accounts because we've all been there, right? When prayers go unanswered as it seems like our life is falling apart, or when our whole existence shifts from stable to uncertain and we just don't have the resources to save ourselves, what does bravery look like? It looks like knowing if He lets go, you will be washed out to sea, but having faith that He won't. It looks salt spraying in your face as another wave breaks against your chest with unexplainable weight and force, but knowing you're not standing in it alone. It looks like stillness in the midst of a chaos so deep, you would have no chance if you tried to take it on alone, and remaining confident that He is with you.

I can't tell you if my little one was afraid or not, but if he was, he didn't show it. What he did show was that he was confidence that as long as his Daddy had him, he was gonna be just fine. I pray that we all would have such confidence in our Abba, that we can be brave as long as we know He's got our hand.

Abba, thank you for giving us things in this world that display Your glory and explain Your truth. The ocean, shifting in it's peacefulness and ruthlessness has paralleled the lives of so many, where everything is fine one moment and the next, tragedy strikes. The waves of illness, job loss, ending a relationship and so many others can seem like we're being set up to be drowned. They are too high for us to navigate and too strong to stand against; being knocked into the sand again and again has left many of us weary, and bravery is the last thing on our mind. I ask that those in a season of rocky waves would sense Your powerful grip on them, and would be imbued with confidence that You will not let go, that You are not asleep and that they are not in their situation alone. I ask that the panic that comes with the salt in their faces would dissipate, and that faith would arise, that as long as You have them, that your grip is firm, and that they will be ok. Thank you for showing me what it means to be brave when called beyond our safe shores. In Jesus name, amen.