Ride the wave, man!

“Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”

-1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.”

-Philippians 4:6 (NLT)

Stu was our main guide and advisor on last year’s mission trip to Tacate, Mexico. He was a typically laid-back Southern California surfer dude.  He had the look with the straggly blonde hair, deep tan, and wiry physique.  Every time something went wrong he’d give us suggestions on what to do to fix the problem and then say, “Ride the wave, man.” 

What the heck does that mean? 

His usual greeting was with the “hang loose” sign and he never seemed to get shaken by anything.  As the week marched on, I heard a handful of times, “Ride the wave, man.”

Incredulous, I was always left incredulous as to what that means.  Oh I get the phrase from a surfing point of view (even though I’ve never surfed), but I’ve never understood the phrase from a biblical point of view.  Until now.

 A little over a month ago on the return trip from our second Mexico Mission Trip, we stopped at a beach in La Jolla.  Many of us ventured out into the ocean to body surf and ride boogey boards.  I’m not good at either but while flailing around in the surf and desperately trying to catch a wave, I had an epiphany of understanding about Stu’s “ride the wave” phrase. 

Waves are exterior and as they come at me I get to choose how to react to them.  My reaction is an interior choice in regard to the exterior stimuli.  I can fight the wave by resisting it only to have it bowl me over with a force that drives me under the water and into a panicked frenzy for breath.  I can stand sideways to it and let it slip past me.  If it isn’t too big I can jump over it on its way toward the shore.  If it is big enough I can actually dive through it as it breaks over my body.  Or if I time it just right and it’s the right size, I can jump on my board and ride the wave into shore where I’ll be able to stand up on the sand with no problem while the wave dissipates into a ripple and then into nothing. 

Make no mistake, the waves keep coming, but with a deeper understanding of my choices toward the waves, I can stop fearing them by choosing the right reaction to them.  So Stu was trying in his surfer-cum-philosopher way to teach us how to handle the waves of life that normally cause us to resist with worry and fear.  His encouragement was to properly assess the wave and then choose the right reaction to it.  We assess the size of the wave and the frequency of the other surrounding waves.  What is the wave’s speed and what is its depth? 

God made our brains complex enough to gather all this data quickly so as to make the proper and timely decision.  If we just stand flat-footed with mouth agape as the wave hurtles toward us we will be easily knocked over and consumed with the wave’s force.  But if we prepare ourselves spiritually and mentally, we can instead choose the correct reaction to either let the wave pass by or to ride it in a thrilling ride to the shore.

In Matthew chapter six, Jesus has several exhortations to not worry but to instead trust in God.  In Stu’s way, he was teaching us the message from Christ; and while it isn’t a biblical quote, “ride the wave, man” can still serve as a nice mental reminder that we choose how we react to life’s waves.

So, “ride the wave, man.”