What You Perceive as Negative, Jesus Flips the Story
The refreshing water splashes over my feet as I wade farther out from the shoreline. I stop about knee deep and take in the vast sight before me: an endless ocean. The water below me is clear, where my feet are sinking in the white sand, and a few seaweed clusters dance back and forth around me. The water changes from clear to green, then dark blue as it touches the horizon.
I breathe in the ocean smells and don't dare to move. This is one of my happy places. I am still, and I take a moment to praise and worship Jesus. As I talk to Him, joy rises up within me.
The waves continue to crash into me, and it hits me. (No pun intended.) Several years back, I sat on a shoreline watching waves crash upon rocks. But my perception was that those waves were ruthless. Overwhelming. Drowning. Those Mexico ocean waves were grief and loss from losing my boy, Seth. How would I survive those? I was gasping for air, begging the Lord to stop them.
Yet, now I stand still against the persistent Florida waves, and these are inviting me to go deeper. I take a few steps and allow the waves to come further up. And then the Spirit speaks, "What you have perceived before as negative, I always flip the story."
"Oh? Tell me more,” I eagerly reply.
As with many times when the Spirit of God speaks to me, my mind fills with truth from encounters with His Word. Initially, I am reminded of a book I had finished the day before, where the author was explaining pain and suffering through the lens of God's sovereign will. A question we usually ask is "Why would God allow this to happen to me?" The author lists the typical answers: God is sovereign and allows sin and suffering to make us more Christ-like, to reveal sin and idolatry and bring about repentance, to comfort others where we have received comfort, to shine Jesus' light to others through the work He has done in us, etc.
While I 100% believe in the sovereignty of His will and agree that He uses sin, pain, and suffering for those reasons, I wish we would also balance it with the humanness of God in His Son, Jesus. Jesus was in agony and torment before heading to His death, even at His most vulnerable, asking His Father if He could give it up. Jesus chose to surrender to God's will for something that would be worth it all.
I've been on both sides of the counseling table, having walked in my own sin and suffering, while also holding the raw hearts of others in their own. And let's just be honest. When we are drowning in the waves, throwing out the anchor, "Just hold on, God is going to work it all out for your good,” is usually not going to be enough to lift someone up. It actually keeps our focus on self and how we will benefit from it, when deep down there has to be more—we are grasping for something beyond ourselves that will prove it's worth it.
You see, sin and suffering were NEVER God's plan. That was NEVER His will. From the very beginning, my sons weren't supposed to die. I wasn't supposed to struggle with my fleshly desires. I wasn't supposed to be afflicted with a chronic disease. Friends weren't supposed to betray and hurt me, and I wasn't supposed to betray and hurt those I love. The list could go on. Those waves that God created weren't ever supposed to be destructive.
But God...my favorite phrase...but God is not some god on a throne that sits and allows it because He has the power to do so and is apathetic. But He doesn't only allow it by His mercy to work it all out for our good. Further, in His justice, there's more: He sits on His throne and uses His power and will to not let sin and evil win. He is too good, too holy, and He won't let sin and suffering get the last word. So He sent Jesus to die. THAT was His plan. THAT was His will even before Eve bit into that fruit of deception. Jesus' last words over sin and death and suffering were: "It is finished." What overwhelming grace and mercy and justice. What LOVE.
I'm soaked in the water now, floating on the waves gliding me back and forth. The Spirit whispers the words from Song of Solomon 2:13, "Come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me." He has more to share with me in these waves—they weren't intended to be destructive all along. My Father always flips the story. He takes back the sin and suffering and gives me More...
More of Himself.
"I was always in your waves."
He speaks to me now so loudly that everything around me disappears as if only He and I are surrounded by these waves.
“Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me. The Lord will send His faithful love by day; His song will be with me in the night—a prayer to the God of my life.” (Psalm 42:7-8, HCSB)
I want more of Him. So I let His waves wash over me completely. Every inch of myself from head to toe is overtaken by the water. The song lyrics come to mind, "If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking."* I want to sink in His faithful love. I want to drown in the waves of His faithful love.
"Thus says the Lord...who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord of Hosts is His name..." (Jeremiah 31:35, ESV)
While once I was suffocating from the waves, begging Him to stop them, I now can't get enough of these waves, never wanting them to stop sweeping over me. I don't want to come up, but go deeper still. I want Him to stir up the sea, so His love washes over me. Cleansing me. Consuming me. Filling me.
Leading up to this day, I've been on a process of surrender, asking Jesus to refine me, dig out, expose, and deliver all the evil and wickedness within me. He's been knocking me over and over, but raising me up to holiness and humility.
I rise from the waves to stand, but the cold air sends a chill. I sink back into the water and let the warmth seep into me. The waves never stop. Ever. They keep coming because the ocean is endless.
And so is His love for me. For all of my life I have heard those famous words of John, "For God so loved the world..." I've been told to put in my name: "For God so loved Christina..." But I couldn't bring down the grandness of God loving the whole world to make it intimate and personal to me. I only thought I was just one among the billions and billions of people since the beginning of time whom He loves.
"...the king will desire your beauty.” (Psalm 45:11a)
Oh, but I'm not just one among them all. He desires me. He thinks I'm lovely and beautiful. He died for me because He wanted me. I was the something that was worth it all. No one can or will ever love me like Him.
Like the waves that don't stop, His Words don't stop flooding me; He spoke this to Ephraim (Israel) but it also had penetrated my soul at a time of fearing His rejection:
“Isn’t Ephraim (Christina) a precious son (daughter) to Me, a delightful child? Whenever I speak against [her], I certainly still think about [her]. Therefore, My inner being yearns for [her]; I will truly have compassion on [her]. This is the Lord’s declaration.” (Jeremiah 31:20, HCSB)
He is declaring over me that He yearns for me from His deepest inward parts. Even in my weakness and failures, I don't have to prove myself to Him. Am I lovely enough? Worthy enough? I can stop justifying myself—using my own self-righteousness when His righteousness is what makes me right in His eyes. I am lovely and worthy only because of Him. Nothing I can do or don't do will ever stop His love. Nothing that others have done or don't do to me can stop His love. He can never reject me. He can't not love me.
I finally lift my myself up out of the water. I make my way back to the shore, drenched and overflowing with awe and wonder at this revelation by the Spirit in the waves. Because Jesus loved me so much, he chose to be in the midst of my sin and suffering on the cross, to flip the ultimate story of death to life. He gave it all up because He wanted to have all of me.
Therefore, He continues to flip every story of my life because in the midst of any sin or suffering, Jesus is always in the waves. He's calling me to come and go deeper still. The story doesn’t finish with “…the king will desire your beauty.” The Beauty must respond to the King: “Bow down to him, for he is your lord.” (Psalm 45:11b) Each wave is a yearning for the surrender of all of me, in which I will receive more than my good working out; I will be swept away by more of Love, Himself.
"The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing." (Zephaniah 3:17, ESV)
* “How He Loves Me" by David Crowder Band