Storm Surge... Happy Sunday!

“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus

After winter storm Riley, which was classed as our second cyclone bomb storm of 2018, the waves breaking on our local beach just before high tide were coming in 10 to 15 feet high. There was extensive flooding all along the coast. Roads were closed. Long time residents of the beach areas, some of whom had waded out to higher ground, said they had never seen anything like it. It tore up the sea wall, and left big gaps in the pavement of the roads along the beaches. And it drew lots of people down to the sea to witness. There were lines of parked cars wherever you could get even remotely close to the beach, and hundreds of people (maybe thousands over the the course of the day) braved the wind and the water to get close enough to see the waves. I was there on my eBike, drawn like everyone else to get a glimpse of the what the sea was doing. 

I can only speak for myself, but what drew me was the power of the waves...the force...the might! There is something in us that delights to be near that kind of display of nature’s power...standing in what we believe to be a safe spot, and watching the elements unleashed. We are so drawn that some of us always get too close for safety...dancing along on the edge of disaster for the thrill of energy it releases in us. When we should, reasonably, respond with fear, we respond with excitement. Instead of retreating to somewhere safe, we push our faces right out into the wild elements, and draw a strange pleasure from the danger. 

Some see the power of God in such waves...in nature at its most overwhelming, and I am tempted to see it that way myself. But then I remember that my God is not the God of chaos...but the God of living order. Not the God of destruction, but the God of Creation. Not a dangerous God, but a loving God, shielding us from nature at its most overwhelming. I remember that we have learned to walk along the edge of the storm without fear, safe in the protective power of our God. And I am not one to test that power. I feel the thrill of the waves just as much as anyone drawn down to the beach yesterday, but I am not getting close enough to be swept away...and that is just God’s wisdom at work in me. The generous eye sees God in the waves, but never in their destructive power...always in loving creation keeping us safe. Happy Sunday!