I took a pensive walk with the Lord on the beach yesterday. The day was just crisp enough so that it wasn't hot, not yet anyway. That will come soon enough. I took off my sandals and rolled up my jeans and waded into the water's edge. The sand, being wet, was packed hard under my feet, not at all like the shifting, sifting sands 15 feet inland. Avoiding stepping on shells or pebbles in my bare feet, the Lord and I began our walk."Do you hear My voice in the water?" He asked me. I listened as I kept walking. But no, I wasn't hearing His voice in the water. I kept walking and listening while people-watching. I passed a little boy about four years old who was dancing with his shadow on the wet sands as if he had just discovered that he had a shadow. I was greeted by an enthusiastic Jack Russell Terrier named Molly as I came near her masters' blanket. I made my way around a group of teens comprised of several squealing girls and the guys who were chasing them. I listened as I waded through a wide indentation in the sand filled with sun-warmed sea water, but there was no voice in that water either.
A flock of seagulls strutted the beach on their their toothpick legs always facing the ocean. A newcomer flew into the flock and almost immediately began an argument with another seagull. I'm guessing the newcomer was not so new and wanted his place of seniority back. A whole lot of squawking at each other went on until the newcomer had won and the other sauntered away, seemingly accepting his defeat. A fisherman stood just out of reach of the water, his red bucket of bait by his side, and cast a far-reaching line out into the sea.. Are there salt water fish this close to land, I wondered.
I continued walking until it was time to head back, surprised when I turned around at how far I had come. But I was disappointed in my walk. I was hoping for more of an encounter with the Lord. As I was heading toward the end of my walk I told Him so. And again I heard, "Do you hear My voice in the water?" No, Lord, I don't, I answered. What I did hear was the crashing of the waves and then the bubbly sort of commotion as seashell studded waves tumbled over each other in their race toward the boundary God had set at creation, only to have to recede back and try again.
As I stood in the ebbing froth, I wondered where the molecules of waters that now played around my feet had been before and whose feet they had covered elsewhere. I heard the call of seagulls and the nearby breakers, but I heard no voice of God in any of it. "Lord, help me to hear Your voice in the waters," I petitioned Him. The next moment my attention shifted from the busyness of the waves where I stood to the stillness of the water on the horizon, far out at sea. I became aware of the vast and powerfully majestic unfathomable depths of the ocean miles out from where I stood. How deep the ocean is, I thought. How unconquerable. If storms would come and stir up angry waves, even so, they would not have come from the water, but from forces other than the ocean itself. I was struck by the ocean's vastness and the quiet power as compared to the race to the beach of the competing baby waves near the shore.
All the commotion and activity near the shore, He seemed to be saying is like mankind's ways, with much ado and rushing about, competing with one another, tumbling over each another in our attempts to reach a goal that will then require we try again. It became clear to me that the 'almightyness' of the sovereign sea covers the earth in a powerful display of the 'Almightiness' of God, giving testimony to His unfathomable depth, His unchallengeable power, and His absolute sovereignty that covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. Compare this to the ways of men and seagulls where there is often noise and confusion, strife and competition, rushing to get to where you'd have to only rush again soon after. But the closer you get to the deep places in God, and the more unfathomable He becomes in His goodness and wisdom, the quieter you become in your spirit, having let go of things that matter no more, making room for more of God in your heart and your life. Then I knew I had heard His voice ~ in the deep waters.
