What the Tide Teaches Us About Faith

The Lord grants his loving-kindness in the daytime; in the night season his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. Psalm 42

I am thinking of taking a trip sometime this summer, although it may not happen until autumn. I don’t know what’s happening with me. There was a day I could spontaneously get a wild hair up my nether regions, toss a few essentials into my rolling duffle bag, and take off on some wild and bizarre adventure. Not anymore. My spontaneity gene has up and left town without me.

Now I plan and plod. I check out long-range weather forecasts and astronomical charts, put my finger on the calendar, seeking a day where the roads won’t be clogged by tourists or (worse) three day weekends where I’ll have to add a slug of inebriated jack-a-lopes to the mix and, since there is nothing that actually stirs the soul, fold up the map, toss it back into the cupboard, and decide that maybe next year I’ll feel more like traveling.

The paralysis of analysis is a real thing. So is depression (clinical or otherwise). Life is cyclical and sometimes we are just so worn down and beat up by the constant pounding of the surf that we find the bank of the soul eroding and washing away like the banks of the Yellowstone in full flood. The psalmist knows this. 

Life – both regular life and the spiritual life – has its ups and downs. People of faith are often surprised to find the feelings of warmth, love, and joy they might have experienced early on ebbs and flows. They may feel guilty when they discover their faith becoming lukewarm or, God forbid, even cold and icy. They wonder if there is something wrong with them, or if their faith is genuine, or if they have some unknown sin that has disappointed God enough for the good Lord to withdraw favor. Ouch!

No. Feelings are real. The love of God is there whether or not we feel it, just as the sun is there when the clouds or night obscure the fact.

I live close to Puget Sound, and there are times I see nearby Padilla Bay lapping the shoreline next to the roadway, and other times there is a mile or more of mudflats exposed by a tide that has gone out – way out. I love the freshness of the salt-air at high tide, but when the tide goes out, blech!

Sometimes the tide is out in life, and that’s OK. The psalmist doesn’t try to hide his face in shame. He doesn’t try to power through it as if it isn’t OK to feel what he feels. I suspect he might even be willing to punch the nose of any peer who suggests he just “buck up” or “turn that frown upside down!” There are three things I get from this psalm.

First, be genuine. Don’t worry about what others may think or say you should feel. Own your life. Acknowledge what’s happening. There is a commandment that we are not to bear false witness, so we need to be true and honest to self and to God. Putting this stuff down on paper or sharing it with a trusted friend often relieves some of those internal pressures.

Secondly, the psalmist remembers better and brighter times. He remembers that God is eternal, but our circumstances and feelings aren’t. “In the night season his song is with me.” The presence of God often grows warmer and more real in the midst of the assembly, so he makes a point of surrounding himself with the faithful, depending on the warmth of their presence to warm his own soul.

And finally, he listens for the voice of God singing. God sings life into creation. God sings resurrection to a cold, dark, dangerous, and deadly world. When I hear the voice of God singing in the night, I know God is calling. 

Unlike the Sirens who called sailors to their destruction in the ancient fables, God calls us to new life, and if we need to rest a bit, God changes the tune to the lullaby we need and, like the psalmist, I find that very kind, sweet, and loving here in this, our valley.

Keith Axberg writes on matters concerning life and faith. Author of: Who the Blazes is Jesus? Good News for a Vulgar World (available through Amazon in Print and e-book)