Reading Time: 4 minutes

I stumbled down the sandy wooden steps, laden with beach chairs, an umbrella, and other items suited for a day of sand and sun. I had come early, hoping to find that coveted location not too far from the entrance, but not too close to scores of other people. But instead of yards of vacant beach, I found a narrow strip of sand battered by angry waves. Another family was pressed up against the dunes, like me, waiting for the swells to recede. I knew from a Tide App that high tide was at 9:20 AM today, but it was 9:30 now and the waves didn’t seem to care. By a quarter to ten, the knowledge of the high-tide schedule was actually making me more annoyed than had I not known the timing, as I could clearly see the foamy ranks were reaching even farther up than when I’d first arrived. I found an unmolested spot, plopped my gear beside me, sat down in my chair to wait for more expansive real estate, and pondered the waves. Here is the fruit of those musings…

I have often read how people in ancient times saw the sea as a dangerous and chaotic monster, not to be taken lightly. And every time I read such things I think, “what do you mean, ‘in ancient times’? I still think of the sea that way!” One can’t help feeling the power of the sea, even while only standing knee-deep in its currents. You feel the tug around your legs and know that it could drag you out into its depths in the blink of an eye, and no one would ever see you again. It’s a mighty force! But have you ever wondered what keeps the waves at bay? Nestled comfortably behind me, just a few yards beyond the dunes, was a row of ocean-view homes. Why did the builder think it was safe to place them there, in the light of these advancing swells? Why did people think it was a good idea to plant a city like New Orleans, which is some 6 to 10 feet below sea level, right on the Gulf coast? Because, for all the tumultuous gains of these curling crests, and for all the flooding of sporadic Katrina’s, these waves retreat as quickly as they come. It is the breaches and floods that are the exceptions, not the boundary.

Now you may think of the ocean like a giant bowl of water, with its liquid contents confined by simple gravity, and just as you don’t marvel that the water doesn’t overflow the lip of that bowl while sitting on the counter, so you’re not amazed that the ocean stays put. But feed that bowl with a thousand streams and rivers, dumping their swirling volume incessantly into that pool, and add the downpour of countless storms, and the run-off of colossal glaciers, not to mention the displacement of billions of sea creatures and nautical vessels, and tell me again why it stays within its sandy rim. This pounding of the waves has gone on for millennia, but dig up some musty map and trace the shape of all the countries bordering the oceans and you will find those familiar contours you’d see on any modern map. The centuries of battering waves haven’t altered the shorelines to any appreciable degree. How could this be?

Men may name a dozen processes that preserve the delicate line between the land and sea but none of these explain exactly why, they just explain how. They are simply the tools God’s edict employs to hold the billows and breakers in check. “‘Do you not fear Me?’ Says the LORD, Who have placed the sand as the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass beyond it? And though its waves toss to and fro, yet they cannot prevail; though they roar, yet they cannot pass over” (Jer. 5:22) And again, speaking of the sea, God says, “When I fixed My limit for it, and set bars and doors; When I said, ‘This far you may come, but no farther, and here your proud waves must stop!’” (Job 38:10-11) These verses tell us that it is not the tugging of the moon or the shape of our globe that binds the waves, but the word of our Creator. He, it is, who limits their advance.

And thinking about all this and the ancient’s sense of evil in the oceans, it reminded me of the ebb and flow of wickedness in our world. Sometimes it feels like “darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people (Isa. 60:2) “I have seen the wicked in great power and spreading himself like a native green tree,” the Psalmist observed. “Yet he passed away, and behold, he was no more; indeed I sought him, but he could not be found.” (Ps. 37:35-36) Try to stop the retreating waves and you will fail. They flee as quickly as they come, leaving nothing but a foamy residue and quickly drying grains. Sand may be entirely insufficient as a foundation for a house, but by God’s command, it is a well-suited barrier against these surges. And though the knowledge of His sovereign protection may actually try us at times, as God’s dreams to Joseph did, when their fulfillment seemed never to arrive. (Ps. 105:19) The Tide App of God’s word tells us that these waves will soon retreat and His kingdom will continue to expand. Take heart, dear saint, “The winds and waves still know, His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.”