Navigating Waters of Pain and Incoherence
“I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of ages”
This quote is often attributed to Charles Spurgeon, a well-known 19th century London pastor, though he never said it. He did say some things along those lines, and someone, somewhere put it together in this memorable quotation form (and I’m glad for that). What it means essentially is that one can grow to the point of having gratitude amidst the great difficulties of life (“the waves”) that would bring them a deeper desire for God and the things of God.
That is true. Much of my experience over the last year and a half attest to that. Note that one does not need to be grateful for the things that bring us pain, in order to give thanks for the ways God can transform through them.
Spurgeon’s similar quotation refers to the “waves” not in terms of suffering or difficult circumstances, but temptation. That’s also true. Living with the tension of an inner pull toward things that you know are not good for you, or honoring to God, therefore ultimately not what you want can also awaken one’s desire for God in unique ways.
The quote came to mind for me, not so much because of either of those meanings, but because of how much our contemporary context can feel like swimming against the current of strong waves and tides. Many of those are also waves of difficulty, and therefore pain, and there are waves of temptation within it all, as well.
Pain often goes hand in hand with temptation.
One of my mentors would often say that the greatest commitment of humanity is the avoidance of pain. If you look around with that as your lens, a lot of things begin to make more sense.
When culture shifts and things fracture (things we cared about, things we depended on, things we hoped might have a future) it’s painful. If you think about physical fractures you’ve seen, how often are they clean breaks? Don’t they usually have surprising, spiderwebish lines radiating out, edges chipped off inconsistently, and leftover fragments?
Similar things happen with metaphorical fractures in a society. The cracks show up in unexpected places, relationships, institutions, families. I’m sort of mixing metaphors here, although waves and tides are very able fracturers. Floods reshape landscapes with ease, there’s really no telling what won’t be fractured under their currents. Something similar seems to occur with people, though it’s much harder to point at and give a name.
The pain of instability seems to lead to more instability.
It doesn’t have to, of course. Certainly if we aren’t “kissing the waves” of difficulty, the other waves of temptation will likely be too much for us to resist. We will lash out. Oh, we’ll tell ourselves that we’re actually doing pretty well because we haven’t lashed out for a while, but really we’re just stuffing the pain and making the eventual lash-out bigger and worse.
We’ll tell ourselves that we’re just venting - processing with friends - but really we’re using others as we feed our own anger. And unlike physical floods, we can actually add to the instability of society and relationships when we succumb to these kinds of temptations (and I’m sure we all have at some time or another. I’m certainly not innocent, here).
Did you ever try to make a regular pool into a wavepool as a kid? You and your friends would find the floats with the most surface area, then push them down or smack them against the water until the whole thing was a roiling, convulsing sea fit for Jack Sparrow or one of the tankers in those North Sea vids online. If we had the power, no one in their right mind would do that to themselves in the actual North Sea, or any major body of water!
However, I think this is exactly what we do to ourselves and others in our societal upheavals.
We lash out from our places of pain and only add to the destructive power, particularly for those closest to us- those we may have hoped to protect!
What might it look like to ride it out instead?
To learn to kiss the waves I think you have to learn to ride them first.
In the physical realm, floodwater will either subside, or it has taken over for good, and you are going to need to find new ground. I don’t think it’s very different with the cultural “waters.” You may have figured out if you’ve gotten this far, that this is another post on the topic of outlasting the zeitgeist. The word in my mind might be a surprise, considering all the hydrological imagery above, but I think coherence is a big part of the necessary strategy for cultural wave riding.
Consider the waves we’re experiencing together. Does it not feel as if we are lurching back and forth from one extreme to another? Does it not feel like a tempest of one form of insanity and then another, and on and on? Those with the influence to affect the civilizational wavepool, as it were, have seemed to view instability as their opportunity, but not an opportunity to restore sanity so much as to replace it with their own brand of incoherent chaos.
Certainly, plenty of good can still come about in and through these times. God gives something theologians refer to as “common grace,” utilizing even the waves of our lives to bring about blessing. His special grace is found in the person and work of Christ Jesus, who guarantees that all the waves will work to the ultimate blessing of those called by him, who love him, but his common grace means that not every moment of every day is utter and constant pain, and that’s a good thing.
The existence of God’s care through the waves is not a reason to add to them, though. It’s incoherent to add to them! However, when we live only out of the deep commitment to avoid pain, we live in incoherence and we add pain upon pain, and insanity upon insanity.
Centering life on the gospel brings coherence.
To truly ride out the waves and outlast the zeitgeist we need to understand that life is on the other side. If a generational flood sweeps through town, there simply is no going back. You can rebuild. It might look the same, but often the topography itself is so shifted that even things that look the same are different… perhaps improved.
God promises special grace to his people. He who did not spare his own son to pay the penalty of rebellion for his people will also give them all things in the end. This is life. In union with Christ, you get it all. You get him- that is life. When waves of chaos and pain rush in, this reality is the vessel that can withstand all turbulence. This reality is clarity, stability, coherence.
If we need a positive vision to make it through these days, and that vision is the promotion of gospel wholeness, the pursuit of that wholeness must be characterized by an unflinching coherence, otherwise we just add chaos.
Think of it as gospel sanity. If my future is determined by God’s grace, then I can make it through even the most painful circumstance. I can then work for wholeness in my world without needing it to come to fruition in my time. Listen, it breaks my heart just like yours when it seems that my life and work amount to nothing. We all have those moments, and unfortunately, sometimes they really last!
However, the combination of a deep passion for the positive vision of wholeness with the knowledge that the future is secure (there’s a reason God is called “rock”) and even good (because he cares about wholeness far more than we could) produces a calm coherence that steadily works by grace toward wholeness.
I don’t need to win.
This reality and living in light of it is coherence. I don’t need things to go my way or the “right” way, whether it’s in my culture or country, my town or my church, or even my own family. The world is convinced that this is incoherent, but might I submit the whole of human history as exhibit A-Z why the world is dead wrong about this?
The world has often convinced church folk of its incoherence, and I can’t think of a single scenario in church history where that has worked out well (though, again, common grace gives blessings despite the incoherence and chaos we bring). If the future is dependent upon God’s grace, the flailing of the world for its wins is nonsensical and deeply incoherent. How much more true for the church?! If your father is preparing a feast for you, it’s completely crazy to throw a fit about your applesauce…
I believe God is calling you to pursue his positive vision of wholeness- all things made new- with coherence, not the flailing, lashing, anxiety and panic of a world that believes its future depends on winning, whether at work, or within your community, or in politics. Coherence comes through trusting the gospel in deeper and deeper nooks and crannies of your heart (not just assenting to the bullet points to get your heaven-ticket) where your pain and the logic of the world argue that you must fight and win.
But, one day, for those who trust Jesus, wrong will be made right.
The fractures will be healed.
Your presence and work will count eternally.
Justice will be done.
This is the world of wholeness that is coming into being. When you don’t need to win, you are freed to work hard for wholeness wherever you have influence… and when you don’t need to win, you will find that you do indeed “win,” often in unexpected times and ways.
There will be foretastes of the world to come. They will not arrive through rage of the nations, nor their impersonators in churches, but through the coherent lives of those who live like the truth is the truth.