In this lesson, Paul is going to talk about waves. He was familiar with those, and it is a relevant analogy because life can be like an ocean, one churned by unseen winds. Seen or not the winds are felt by the rafts of our lives, and there is a rocky shoreline never too far away. How can we avoid being smashed and torn, stranded and sunk on those breakers? They are not idly called breakers.
On top of this seeming to buzz around us like waverunners are those who will tell us how to interpret life’s ups and downs. “Follow me,” they shout from nearby, “I can show you a way between the cliffs.” Then between their words, you keep thinking that you hear thumps and crashes like the waverunners are not turning out to be very successful. If they, with motors, cannot steadily navigate life how can we on rafts?
Lydia, my firstborn, is wrapping up her final months at Truett McConnell University, a Christian university in North Georgia. Next year she will take up her profession as a teacher, and the arc of her life will enter a new phase. Some of life’s waves are behind her; more waves are yet to come.
She is not alone at this point in life. Millions like her were born in the mid- 1990s and now live in millions of places. The cadre of those who graduated from Curtis Baptist High School are on their trajectories many, maybe most, diverging rapidly from one another. Are they blown and tossed by life, or are they steady in the waves?
In the verses preceding those of this lesson, Paul wrote of equipping, building, unity in faith and knowledge. These things lead to maturity as God designed. Today’s three verses tell us the value of maturity. They will remind us that there is a way to navigate steadily through life’s waves.
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