Still Waters
“He leads me beside still waters.” Psalm 23:2
I get more car sick than almost anyone I know. It’s pretty terrible. I even get motion sick while I’m driving sometimes, which is relatively unheard of. But let me tell you the one thing I’ve learned is worse than being car sick - and that’s being seasick. Bad. News.
When I was in 8th grade, my family went to the Keys for Spring Break. We decided to get temporary scuba certifications, so we could go scuba diving for a day. We had to go through an entire day of training in a pool, and then the next day, they loaded us into a boat with one other family and off we went. I had not been in that boat for more than a minute before I started to turn green. The way the waves rock the boat back and forth… oh it was bad.
The scuba instructor asked if I had had any orange juice for breakfast, because apparently citrus makes seasickness worse. I had not, but about 30 seconds later, the other family we were with started passing around oranges and just the smell of them did me in. By the time we got to our first dive location, I was basically laying on the side of the boat just throwing up off the side. Not a pretty picture.
The dive instructor came up to me and said, “I know this is not what you feel like doing right now, but I promise if you’ll just get into the water, you’ll feel better.” Apparently most people don’t listen to him and continue to lay on the side of the boat feeling miserable, but I was so desperate, I think I would have done anything he told me to feel better. So I got in.
And amazingly, as soon as my body hit that water, I felt better! My body wasn’t rocking against the waves anymore like it was in the boat. I was floating with the water- I was essentially still while the water travelled around me. No more seasick.
I think sometimes the world can make us a little seasick. There is so much rocking us back and forth - social media, peer pressure, gossip, people telling us how we should or shouldn’t act… We get pushed and pulled and shaken and rocked until we can’t take it anymore. We need to be more still.
That is what we all love about camp so much- we put down all the technology that pulls at us, and we let ourselves just be ourselves. We have DMCs and talk to God and actually rest during the day. Yes, we do a lot during camp, but while we are at camp, our minds and bodies are amazingly still. What a relief it is! Don’t we want that all the time?
In this Psalm, David is telling us that God is there to provide that for us. He leads us to still waters… He tells us to get in with Him instead of staying on the boat. And when we do, we feel His peace.