If there is anything that describes the time in which we currently live it’s an acceleration of waves. This is a picture I can grasp in my mind. Waves of change. Waves that get bigger and bigger and crash to the shore with more frequency.
We can be caught off balance. We can be swept away just by the thought of change. We can be crushed by the volume of change that hits us.
Things I could see coming 30 years ago as cultural arguments and struggles did indeed come… faster than I thought and with more ferocity and then moved on to things beyond what I thought I could anticipate. There is an acceleration that is mind crushing.
Here is the challenge of the believer:
The challenge of faith is the challenge not to be a wave. There are many winds and tides in human life, and it’s easy to imagine ourselves important because we seem, from time to time at least, to dance and sparkle this way and that. The question is whether the character that develops within us is the real thing, or whether, as James says in (Chapter 1 verse 6), we are simply double-minded and unstable, blown and tossed about by this wind or that.
Wright, T. (2011). Early Christian Letters for Everyone: James, Peter, John and Judah (pp. 3–4). SPCK; Westminster John Knox Press.
There is an anchor in the storm. There is a rock to which I can hold on. There is One who will guide me in and through the changing waves. My mind can rest. My soul can trust. It is not a matter of “holding on” … at least not all the time. There ARE times it feels that way. But more often, it’s a steady walk of trust.
There is character to be developed in our lives. Deep character that can’t be shaken by the next big wave. We are also not enamored with the next big wave. Our eyes on focused on Christ our anchor and whatever comes is something for which he has prepared us.
To this I hold.
Apprentice 2 Jesus 