On the Island of Kauai, Hawaii, the waves were at record height.  There were all kinds of warnings about surf and wave size.   Be careful!   Some waves, they estimated,  were as high as 100 feet!  They call them ‘monster waves’!  Surfers from all over the world came to Kauai to ride these monsters.

Not me!   I’m afraid of water.  Actually,  it’s swimming in it that’s not in my vocabulary.  Love to sail on the ocean…on a cruise ship.  Ride on it in a friend’s boat, or sit by it on beaches.  But swim in it?   No way.  Can’t.  Too Afraid.  Even took swimming classes at the YMCA, because  they guaranteed that they could teach me to swim. Guaranteed!   Took all of two sessions and they eagerly gave me all my money back.  All in my family were swimmers.  Me?  Forget it.  I don’t care if my tombstone says that ‘He Never Learned to Swim’.  Too bad, so sad!

Jesus said this to the woman at the well in John 4– “if you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’, you would have asked him, and he would have given you  living water”.   What Jesus wants to give us as well.   He  invites us… to take of it, of Him.  The waves in Kauai arrive.  You come to them.  To ride them is to go with their flow.  To experience their power is to submit yourselves to them.  No manipulating, but a bowing to them under their crest to let them carry you wherever the waves will.  Try to fight them and down you go.  Under the water, drowning because you bucked their power and will.

I don’t think I’m reading too much into this.  It is like the ‘living water’ that Jesus wants to give us…who submit to Him, receive Him as God’s gift of grace and mercy.   Asking for His power and strength to make it through the rough waters of life, to ride with Him, over the deep waters that threaten to engulf us.

‘Living water’!  That’s what Jesus wants to share with us.  No swimming required. No lessons needed.   No surfboards allowed.  Just a willing, submissive and believing heart.  Is that you?  Then get ready for the ride of your life!

Prayer:  Lord, we submit to your Son Jesus the Messiah.  We’ll ride every wave of life with Him under us.  In His name.   Amen.