God Displays His Beauty While Lifting Heavy Burdens by Pastor Kevin

I know I am a little bit overweight. My doctor tells me so. The mirror that I look into affirms it and the scale (that I mostly avoid) reminds me every time I step on it. All of that makes what I am about to say so much more impressive.

I had the privilege of sitting on the beaches of Florida's Atlantic coast for 8 days on our most recent family trip. For me there is something magical about the beach, especially on the Atlantic side with the waves washing up against the shoreline. We have been lucky enough to find a sleepy beach town to vacation at. A nook, if you will, that typically features retired folks or families with kids. Out of the way of those who want to party, the beach is truly a relaxing place for me. 

Let me tell you something that I gleaned this time around that never quite landed on me. This last week it landed on me, almost literally. My son Ben and I are the more adventurous specimens in the Feder five. We actually get into the salty water where there are jelly fish, dolphins and yes, sharks too. We have a shared appreciation for the thrill of being pommeled by the waves that break in shallow water. If you are able to find the right location and position yourself just where the waves mount to their highest point and break, they are really fun. Mind you, fun if you like being thrown to the ground. Fun if you like a jolt of refreshing water instantaneously immersing you. Fun if the water might sometimes threaten to remove your swimwear if it isn't strapped on tightly enough. 

Like I mentioned earlier, an insight landed upon me with almost as much force as those waves landed upon me. I didn't get knocked to the ground or lose my swim shorts over this discovery, but it did lead me to write this blog. The discovery, you ask? It is simply this, I am no lightweight and yet this water tossed me around like I was. I am no match for the power of those waves and I am a fully grown man, you might even say I am an overgrown man. Then it began to dawn on me just how heavy the water is that builds up and crashes down, and this happens over and over and over again from as far as I can see to the north to as far as I can see to the south. The wonder of it was all starting to add up, like the amount of pounds add up as the water heaps into wave formation. 

How many gallons of water are there in a 6 foot wave? I suppose it depends on how wide the wave is. If we just look at a two foot wide sliver of any given wave, the amount of width that would crash into my body, there is easily several hundred gallons of water, equalling thousands of pounds of water that are being lifted up and dropped back to the earth again and again and again. 

I made this discovery not while I was splashing in the water like a child wearing inflatables around his biceps. Rather, I made the discovery while I was lounging in my beach chair, staring at the water much like a camper stares into a fire or a binge watcher binges their favorite tv show. God lifts up these waves, heaps hundreds of thousands of gallons and pounds of water into beautiful waves and then crashes them to the ground again and again and again. God never stops from this activity. One can go to the Atlantic shores of Florida at any given point and the same activity would be happening. From my vacationing vantage point I started wondering: when does God get a break? When does he get to check out and lounge? Answer: he doesn't. God is the God who never slumbers or sleeps (Psalm 121). 

Thus, it landed upon me like the wave landed upon my head, this universe rings with service. God is the God who serves and gives. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (John 3:16). The Son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). God gives and gives much like the waves of the ocean come in and come in and keep on coming in again and again and again. 

These are the realizations that provide me with true rest. Everyone's time at the beach comes to an end. At some point everyone who slumbers on the beach and lounges there like a sack of potatoes must pull themselves together and re-enter the less sunny realities of their lives that are filled with complicated decisions, broken van windows, people getting sick, funerals, needs and needs and more needs, rioting and political unrest, to name a few things I returned home to. I must remind myself of the sound of the ocean and the constancy of waves that God sustains every moment of every day. The sound of the ocean is a theological statement that speaks to me and you and it says: God is the lifter and sustainer of your burdens, don't carry them but place them upon the able shoulders of Christ. Thus, by faith in Christ the weary soul is invited to come to Christ for rest (Matthew 11:28) by allowing Christ to bear the burdens that truly exhaust us. Remember, he is the one who heaps the gallons together continuously, surely, he can bear your burdens so that you can discover rest in their midst. 

There is something more glorious yet about the discovery I made. It is this: God delights in his work and does it effortlessly. Sitting on the beach is strangely relaxing. Why? It wouldn't be so if it reeked of a struggle. When you witness someone moving furniture up a staircase there is naturally a struggle, it doesn't inspire us to pop some corn and find a comfortable chair to spectate. Instead, we feel the desire and obligation to help, to jump in an effort to relieve the burden upon the unfortunate soul fighting with that wretched mattress or dresser unit. 

But God is not like the man with the dresser unit. He accomplishes incredibly difficult work not only constantly but with beauty and grace. In fact, God does this so effortlessly and he paints such an attractive picture with his work we hardly even realize the incredible exertion of immense power. This isn't a burden for him, it is his delight to work, something that we can dare say he is almost resting in himself upon doing. 

Psalm 104:31 May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works. 

Genesis 1:4, 12, 18, 21, 25 "And God saw that it was good." 

Perhaps the glorious reality I am aiming at is this: if God delights in his creation and he rejoices in all his works then we must learn to rest in God by faith. Faith in God must translate into us not bearing burdens that we shouldn't and faith in God means that God is able and willing to serve us in our deepest distress. The fact that God executes all of his work while displaying his beauty provides hope that God can and will display the beauty of his power to his children as they depend on him through their own difficulties. 

Praising God for is immense power and his commitment to display his glory

Pastor Kevin