God Uses What Holds Us Back

when lives waves are too high

I remember once swimming in the ocean, and the waves were getting higher. As the water got higher, I was basically treading water.

It was this significant moment where while I was doing it physically, I realized, I recognized that feeling. I had been feeling as though I’ve been treading water in my life for a season.

I said it out loud for the first time that day.

It’s as though the waves and waters of life were getting higher, without consuming me, and had risen just enough to make it hard to swim.

Just high enough so that I could do nothing but JUST stay above the water. I felt like I was using ALL of my effort to just stay above water rather than swim forward.

One life circumstance after experience after rejection after concern, one thing after another had been pulling me down and the waves were getting higher.

I was sick of that place.

I’d been wanting to desperately move forward in life happily, to grow, and I felt like so many things kept pulling me back.

But somehow, although giving full effort to do what felt like nothing but stay up, looking back, I realized I had been learning how to swim – or live – better.

I’d begun to realize that those things that were pulling me back were the very things God was using to grow me, mold me, teach me, change me, form me, stretch me, use me.

There was purpose for the waves and tumultuous water.

There is purpose for the waves and tumultuous water.

When we abide in the Lord, even waves that seem to hold us back can be used.

And for that reason, “I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages.” – Charles H. Spurgeon

Meg