I hadn’t been to the beach in years. Until, at long last, we took our first college tour. We were so close—we just had to make the detour, to bury our toes in the sand.
The sight . . . the sound . . . the smell . . . the first sensations brought back memories like a flood as we drew near.
One look at the churning sea and I quickly recalled a scary lesson learned . . .
For almost a dozen years I had lived but a few miles from the ocean. In those early days of beach life I gained both a fear and a respect for the power of the ocean’s waves . . . the hard way. Having lived many of my childhood years lakeside, my experience with waves was far less dramatic than those of an angry sea.
My first visits to the beach were when it was calm and friendly. I was naïve to its Hyde-side (as in Jekyll and Hyde). I ventured in when, several feet from shore, I had reached a depth barely over my head.
The churning undertow flipped and tossed me about like a rag doll.
I felt panic rise when I couldn’t tell which way was up and the waters grew murky. Through the funnel of bubbles and sand, I fought to look for the light of the sun to guide me out of the dizzying spin.
Remembering the mishap even now causes me to gasp for breath. I state with absolute confidence that I hate that tossed feeling!
In the early, budding stages of faith, I remember praying James 1:6—that my faith not be tossed about:
But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt,
because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea,
blown and tossed by the wind.
And I prayed that my faith would be grounded in truth, the truth of His Word according to Ephesians 4:14:
Then we will no longer be infants,
tossed back and forth by the waves,
and blown here and there by every wind
of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness
of men in their deceitful scheming.
Because when faith is grounded in the Truth, Jesus Christ, how can one possibly be tossed about?
To know Him is to believe Him, and to believe Him is to abide in His Word—that amounts to an untossable faith.
Did I pray those verses more than once? YES!
Whenever things got a bit tumultuous and murky, I had to train myself to prayerfully look up to the Light to get turned back around.
It’s fine to toss a ball, toss a salad, or toss a coin. But I want my faith to be untossed.
(For more from Debbra visit her at debbrastephens.com.)
