‘Waves and Billows’

‘Waves and Billows’

….all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.

Psalm 42:7b

The Psalms plumb the depths of the experiences of the people of God.  We find within them joy and sorrow, rejoicing and weeping, elation and depression.  We all love the mountaintop, but we find ourselves at times in the valley.  The harbor is quiet and peaceful, but we are often on the open sea with towering waves, wild winds, and no safe haven in sight.  As we look at the few words which comprise our text for today, we consider the circumstance which the psalmist describes.  He says, ‘All your waves and billows have gone over me.’  There are several things here for us to consider.  We ought to dwell a bit upon the fact that God does control the ‘waves and billows.’  Even in his distress, the psalmist recognizes that they are ‘Your waves and billows.’  Even the most unsettling of our circumstances are under the control of the Sovereign God.  There is also the fact that although the ‘waves and billows’ had ‘gone over’ the psalmist, they had not utterly drowned him.  Even in the hardest of circumstances, the Hand of God had preserved him.  So the disciples, when they experienced storms upon the sea, found that Christ preserved them on every occasion.  If He preserved them, we can hope that He will also preserve us.  The third consideration for us is that even at his worst, the psalmist knew that he could still resort to God.  Our text is part of a lengthy prayer of a most distressed soul; so, ‘we have an anchor that keeps the soul.’  Christ is our never failing Keeper.  Even though ‘waves and billows have gone over’ us, we are yet in Christ, and Jesus never fails.

Our All-Powerful God,
we rejoice in the protection of Your Almighty Hand.
We praise You that Christ our Master,
still preserves us in the midst of the stormy seas.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning