Learning to Kiss the Waves: Finding God in the Midst of Life's Storms

Life often presents us with challenges, frustrations, and periods of feeling overwhelmed. It's during these times that we may feel like we're constantly battling against a relentless tide, struggling to keep our heads above water. The quote from C.H. Spurgeon, "I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages," offers a powerful perspective on how to navigate these turbulent seasons. It suggests that instead of resisting the difficulties we face, we can learn to embrace them as opportunities to draw closer to God.

Recognizing the Waves of Overwhelm

Sometimes, the feeling of overwhelm can manifest in unexpected ways. Recurring nightmares, like the ones described, can be a signal that we need to re-evaluate how we're handling the challenges in our lives. The image of a tidal wave rushing towards us can be a potent metaphor for the unstoppable surge of responsibilities and anxieties that threaten to engulf us.

Reconsidering Our Reactions

These moments of overwhelm can serve as a catalyst for introspection. Are we properly loving God through our struggles? Are we remaining and abiding in His Word? Are we willing to lay aside the weight of overwhelm and instead rest in God's grace and truth? By asking ourselves these questions, we can begin to shift our perspective and find new ways to cope with the storms of life.

God's Transforming Power

God takes what is intended for evil and bends it for good. God makes sure that the waves that throw us toss us into His everlasting arms. The difficulties we face are not meant to destroy us, but to drive us closer to Him. This perspective allows us to see our trials as opportunities for growth and transformation.

Spiritual Maturity: Growing Beyond Childishness

Scripture often uses the imagery of children to describe Spiritual maturity. Children behave as children, and that is a good and acceptable thing. However, children don't stay immature forever. They grow. They bear new fruit. They learn new things. We cannot afford to stay as spiritual infants. We cannot afford to stunt our own spiritual growth. Directly prior to this verse, Paul talks about "growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ's fullness." We grow in maturity when we grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We become full when we feast on the fullness of God. When we grow to full stature in the Lord, we no longer allow ourselves to be tossed indiscriminately by waves or wind. When we are mature in our faith and ever growing in the Lord, the cleverness of Satan nor the cunning of mankind can move our sturdy roots.

Spiritual maturity can look like a lot of things. It can look like memorized bible verses, or head-knowledge of cross-references. It can look like a dampened temper, or unmoving faithfulness. But maybe those first steps that catapult us from children to adults is learning to see God as Rock of Ages, the One to be thrown against when waves will indeed come, the surest foundation. Or learning to love the things that hurt us because they bring us to God, kissing the waves that rock and toss us. Or even simply learning that we've got much farther to go and grow in our maturity. Let's be believers who never outgrow maturity. May we never think we've arrived at the precipice of spiritual eldership. May we always grow closer and closer to the Lord 'til He calls us home to glory, all the while kissing the waves that sanctify us.

Fighting for Faith in the Midst of Suffering

We all agree that we ought to persevere through trials, but how? How do we fight for faith? When I am suffering it feels impossible to keep my head above the water, much less kiss the wave. My tendency is to hate the wave and to run away from God. I am tempted to reject God or be angry with him, not embrace him during my trial. Spurgeon’s advice is key to suffering well. Our trials are God’s means of drawing us to himself, the Rock of Ages. The wave is a vehicle transporting us to the very doorstep of God Almighty. It is not flippant advice from the prince of preachers. He is not pretending that suffering is easy and we should simply try harder to persevere. Death and suffering came as a result of the fall in Genesis 3. And the prophet Isaiah encourages us to identify clearly the things that are evil: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). We don’t call disease and death good. We call them what they are: evil and wicked.

Kissing the Wave: Embracing God's Sovereignty

Kissing the wave means we stop flailing our arms in panic and embrace the God who has sovereignly designed our circumstances for our good and his glory. The apostle Peter tells us not only to expect trials, but to rejoice in them. “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. When we suffer like Christ, and have the wherewithal to rejoice, his glory is revealed as our faith is tested. Earlier in that chapter, Peter says that our trials purify us and show the genuineness of our faith. James says something similar: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2-3). Our sufferings grow us in our faith. Our trials also allow us to comfort other hurting people. Paul writes, “Blessed be . . . the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too” (2 Corinthians 1:3-5).

God proves our faith in suffering. God matures us in our suffering and makes us more like Christ. These are only a few reasons why suffering comes to us. There is only a shallow joy we can receive when we tie our joy to our ever-changing circumstances. It’s a joy that gets rocked as it’s blown and tossed by the waves of our pain. It’s a joy that only rejoices when our life is perfectly manicured according to our desires. But true and lasting joy comes when we find our joy resting on the Rock of Ages. Ultimately, what suffering does for true faith is take us to God. If God himself is the good news of the gospel, then trials are not something to run from, but something we ride to our Maker. We share in Christ’s sufferings and shine the spotlight on him in our pain. And they make us more and more like him. None of God’s purposes can be frustrated.

Finding Refuge in the Rock of Ages

Experiencing suffering, or facing any kind of trial, is like tumbling over the cliff. As we hit the water, we are no longer awe-inspired observers of beauty, but threatened beings desperate for salvation from the real danger. Our natural, self-preserving instinct, is to kick against the chaos, push for the surface and fight for breath! If the waves do not pull you under, then the force with which you are crushed against the rocks surely will. So if we have any strength at all we will fight to get out of the danger. To give in to the waves, to let them take us, is to give ourselves over to death. How, oh how, can one ‘kiss the wave’? Furman writes for Christians and makes the accurate assumption that each of us, at one time or another, will experience suffering. In what form and to what degree cannot be known (only the Lord knows that) but the truths and encouragement he lays out are and will be relevant, helpful and encouraging to anyone who has ever suffered, is suffering or will suffer.

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Through this book, Furman helps move our gaze from the waves of our suffering and helps us fix our eyes on the place they will inevitably bring us: the Rock of Ages. Unlike the hard, unyielding, jagged rocks of the cliffs, we will not be crushed against our God and redeemer; no, there we find a refuge. Yes, the waves may still batter us. But as we grip and cling to the Rock, they will not destroy us. Look to your left and right, friend, as you cling to him, you will see you are not alone. We all, at some point will enter waves of suffering. So let us encourage one another to hold fast as God holds us. Furman calls us to persevere and remember this is not the end.

Accepting and Learning from Our Storms

Kissing the wave is confessing what’s wrong-in this case, cancer. But it’s also professing what’s right-God’s healing power. Remember my miraculous healing from asthma? It began with a brave prayer. When we find ourselves in difficult situations, we get so focused on getting out of them that we fail to get anything out of them. Then we wonder why we find ourselves in the same situation all over again. There is nothing wrong with asking God to change your circumstances, but His primary objective is changing you. In the words of John Piper, “Don’t waste your cancer.” You can fill in the blank with whatever challenge you face. Don’t waste it! Maybe it has come to teach you a lesson that could not be learned any other way! You don’t need to sabotage yourself-that’s for sure. Suffering will find you soon enough. When it does, you must recognize that it has the power to enrich your life in a way that nothing else can.

The Nearness of God in Suffering

“How long, O Lord?” is a familiar cry to those who experience suffering and despair. In my own experience this question can be asked in both steadfast faith-filled hope and in faithless unbelief. I’ve asked it in both ways in the same hour or minute. But what can Spurgeon mean, to learn to kiss the wave? One thing he cannot mean is to call evil good. God’s word forbids us to do such a thing: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). After he revealed his true identity to his brothers who had sold him into slavery, Joseph said, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20). Hindsight is 20/20, though, right? Where do we find comfort when we’re in the thick of trials in which we can’t see any good (at least not yet)? I think the answer to this question is also in Joseph’s story. “The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge, because the Lord was with him. There’s no doubt about it - the Lord was with Joseph. He was with Joseph in the pit. He was with Joseph in the house where he worked as a slave. He was with Joseph in jail. He was with Joseph in the court of Pharaoh. He was with Joseph in the most dramatic confrontation of his entire life. I don’t think Spurgeon’s comment came from a sarcastic “Pucker up, Waves!” perspective, but one of humble sobriety and childlike faith in God who works all things for our good. The nearness of God is our good. And the trials we endure in this fallen world, perhaps more than most other things, have a tendency to awaken us to this truth. We remember Jesus, who is called Immanuel (“God with us”), and the cross he bore for our sake. We can “learn to kiss the wave” because Christ is near to us and supreme over all things. He died and rose again to vanquish evil forever. Christ is to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30). You can’t get much nearer than that. When there’s nothing in heaven or on earth or under the earth that can separate you from Christ’s love, waves of trials can only throw you onto the Rock of Ages.

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