The water of Lake Huron splashed around between my ankles and knees as my head bent toward the water looking for ‘precious to me’ stones in the water’s shallow depth. The ‘sun’ was shining on me and the air felt good as I moved down the shoreline searching for something.
This simple fun past time reminded me of Pastor Joel’s sermon last Sunday as he talked about pathways to discipleship. We have so many ways and opportunities to investigate our life of faith on our own and in community. To give us a memorable way to think of our faith life, a beach theme was applied to different levels and aspects of faith life. You can go from a toe dipper to a deep diver and many places in between.
I continued to grasp for stones and the water’s rippling effect often caused me to misjudge where the stone actually was – I came up empty handed but still cooled and soothed by the touch of the water on my skin. I tried again. I came up with something! Not the right kind of stone I felt comfortable with at that moment. We’re not going to examine why or why not today – we’re just going to say it wasn’t right for me and back in the water it went for some other rock seeker, or toe dipper or deep diver to choose.
As I gathered ‘keepers’ during my morning jaunt, I thought about Pastor Joel’s sermon and the grid that is so neatly made up to guide us on our path toward living our lives more wholly as a disciple. What did it mean for me? I have been at this disciple thing for a lot of years – admittedly in fits and starts throughout my life. Now, I find myself quite eager to dive deeper, live closer, pray more freely and more often, love harder and softer, scatter kindness with true JOY and forgive more quickly, care for others oh so gently in the hardest of times. . .
So maybe I am a deep diver in some areas of my faith life and maybe I’m a toe dipper or a beach comber in others.
As I splashed to shore with a handful of treasures to examine, I realized that I was excited to be learning about new ways to deep dive into my faith as a whole but I was even more excited to examine some facets of living into my faith that I haven’t even really considered yet as maybe a toe dipper or maybe a beach comber!
Remember not too long ago we participated in the Pass It On Project? Many of us became potters and made beautiful candleholders for each other and passed the gift of the light of Jesus Christ among us. That was merely a start – this leads us to a life-long pathway to living more deeply into our beliefs. Let’s do it together and let’s do it now!
What are you waiting for? The waters more than fine.
~Shauna Weil