Fester not

No matter how beautiful a sunset, there is always something eery and discomforting to me about the ocean. I don’t like its unending-ness—both in length and depth. And often the waves seem mad to me rather than gentle and rolling, as they are for others.

My friend, however, born and bred in So-Cal, thinks me and my land of 10,000 lakes are crazy. She’ll take the ocean any ole’ day over a lake—a body of water that she believes “festers.” It sits there, she says, motionless, festering, brooding, if you will. And that is just downright disgusting, and she doesn’t like to think about swimming in such grossness.

Well, I’ll admit sometimes our lakes do fester. In fact, right now, late in the season with uncanny warm temps, some parts of the lake I run around are spotted with multi-colored algae. And if the wind is blowing just right, it smells. And yes, this would be sick to swim in.

But something I love about lakes is there ability to be absolutely still—so still that they become mirrors for their surroundings. It doesn’t happen often. A boat, ducks, wind—weak or strong—can all upset the water. But sometimes, like tonight, the lake by my house, becomes so still, flat, and calm, that it replicates the trees and shoreline on its surface. You almost can’t decipher the real from the reflection.

I stopped running halfway through my lake route tonight, staring at the water’s stillness and thinking. Thinking how we, as Christians, are to reflect God, and how we, as Christians, rarely reflect God. Like lakes, we get waves when life blows stress, hardship, or pain our way. We grow white caps, curled over in our own self-pity. Or we create ripples when difficult people decide to swim in our waters. And those walking around us don’t see a reflection of God, but rather something that “festers”!

We'll never reflect God perfectly, but we can get closer with some help. One night when Jesus was on a boat with his disciples, there was a “furious storm…so that the waves swept over the boat.” The disciples freaked out and Jesus said, “ 'You of little faith, why are you so afraid?'...then he rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.”
Matthew 8:23-26