Being A Buoy

Being near a lake draws my attention to things I typically don’t see at home in the city. Things like circling seagulls and the rhythm of waves rolling to shore, the color of a sunset reflected on the water, and buoys.

Buoys are everywhere around the lake, marking where boats can go, and how far out swimmers are safe. Typically in this area they are white with an orange-red stripe, and they bob in the water, all day, every day, and through the night and then the next day and the next night and the...well, you get the picture.

It doesn’t seem to matter if the lake is calm or choppy or filled with racing white-capped waves, the buoys still stay in the same place, bobbing up and down, sometimes more agitatedly than at other times, but still there.

I’ve learned that they are anchored to the bottom of the lake by a long chain that holds securely to the solid foundation of a large weight.

When the waves crash over them, they are overwhelmed but not submerged.
During a storm they are pounded but not destroyed.
When cross winds blow they are blown sideways but not blown over.

I want to be a buoy: anchored deep in the confidence of God’s love and care over my life as in the prayers of Ephesians 3:17 -19: "And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in Him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is. May you experience the love of Christ though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God."

When life and circumstances whip up waves around me, I want to be able to keep afloat in the distress. No matter how high the waters rise, I want to be able still to rise above them, to simply bob on the surface of whatever threatens to destroy me because I am anchored deeply and securely with a chain that’s been forged by my own experiences of the faithfulness of God, each link a testimony of God’s enduring grace.

And when life is simply like the doldrums of a calm, windless ocean, I then want to still be in my place, bobbing away, with a consistency much like the stars of the sky. Psalms 19 says “The heavens tell the glory of God. The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or a word; their voice is silent in the skies; yet their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to all the world.”

If I remain faithfully anchored to this foundation of God's love even through storms and foul winds and overwhelming waves, because He "fills me with the fullness of life and power that comes from Him," then it will be evident that He is the source of consistency that I cling to in my life.

And because of this strength and God's faithfulness to me, my life, day after day, will declare His glory, declare that He is in control and that He is good, no matter what my circumstances.