The Purging of the Blowfish

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It never ceases to shock me when the Lord bursts through the words of Scripture to let me know that He sees me.  That He knows exactly where I am and that He has joined together with me in that place to reveal some small piece of Himself to His listening child. 

While were in Florida last week I took my Daily Light onto the patio to pray for a while.  I’ve talked to you before about this book but it is basically a Morning and Evening devo consisting of groupings of topical scriptures.   I could barely take my eyes off the ocean because it was uncharacteristically rough after a day of storms.  In fact, the double red flags were out warning swimmers to stay out of the water.  Before I opened to the day’s reading, I already had in mind the many places in the Word that speak of the Lord holding the oceans in the hollow of His hand and how He had set boundaries for them. 

So, it shouldn’t have been any surprise when one of the first scriptures for that day read, by no accident I’m certain, the following:

27 I was there when he set the heavens in place,
       when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,

 28 when he established the clouds above
       and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,

 29 when he gave the sea its boundary
       so the waters would not overstep his command,
       and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.

 30 Then I was the craftsman at his side.
       I was filled with delight day after day,
       rejoicing always in his presence,

 31 rejoicing in his whole world
       and delighting in mankind.

~Proverbs 8:27-31

 

These verses are spoken from the mouth of Wisdom – she who beckons us to seek her as we would gold.  I’ve never quite resonated with that thought because I don’t consider myself a gold-seeker.  In an attempt to attach some relevance, I replaced gold with things in my life I perceived as valuable only to find I had sought them in ignorance when disappointed in the end.  Looking at it this way forces me to evaluate the mental energy I spend on vain pursuits and either just stop it or make certain that I spend that much effort or more on the seeking of sweet sophia.  

 The thing that occurred to me while watching those waves is this:  The Lord never promised our own personal seas wouldn’t rage, He just said they would not ‘overstep His command’.  I know nothing of oceanography but it doesn’t take a marine biologist to know that a tempest produces a cleansing.   To prove the point, when we walked the beach after the rains we strolled upon a dead blow fish.  Even in its lifeless state it was cute as can be.  Cute but deadly.  Blow fish are highly poisonous and no number of Nemo movies depicting them as harmless aquarium pets will change that fact.  

Girls, there are times when the Lord is obliged to work with hurricane force.  I have to be honest and say there are days when I want to ask Him to lay off for just a minute.  For just a stinkin’ minute.  But the thing is, we all have blowfish of Arrogance, Unforgiveness, Unfaithfulness, and/or Attitude (just to name a few) that He means to purge from the depths of our hearts.  We may not even realize they are there until He shakes things up a bit and brings them to the surface.   The seemingly innocent things He brings to mind may even seem cute and harmless until He gives us eyes to see them for the poison they are. 

The day before we left Florida the double red flags were taken down.  The cleansing was over, the calm had come.   No matter how high and hard those waves roared they could go no farther for no longer than the Lord ordained.  What I noticed then was the most beautiful thing – a rim of crystal clear transparency where only the previous day had churned all manner of debris.  No poisonous critters –  just peace.

No matter the state of the ocean, underneath there runs a current of Wisdom driven by the Father who delights when His children see and understand.  Here’s praying we’ll be women who aren’t slow to get it.