I was desperately craving the fresh air and exercise--not to mention that for the first time ever I will not be spending the summer by this ocean and I would like to soak up every bit of it that I can.
Upon stopping at a lookout point different from my usual spot, I soon noticed something pretty special.
Down below among the surfers was a man with his small child.
The small child was on the front of the man's board all geared up in a wet suit with a helmet and life vest.
Now I know many people in this town teach their children to surf at a young age, but something about this father-son duo caught my attention.
I proceeded to watch as waves would come how the dad was teaching his kid.
The dad had the kid crawl out to the nose of the board and as waves would come, the dad would start paddling from the back. His strong arms were obviously all that was needed to propel the board forward into the wave, but he would simultaneously encourage his child excitedly, "Paddle, paddle!"
I watched them catch a few waves together and after riding each one into shore, I heard an enthusiastic, "Good job!" from the father and then saw a high five as they were paddling out again.
I'm not quite sure why watching this all happen was so meaningful to me, but I found myself crying as I witnessed such a beautiful perfect picture of a father teaching his child.
Knowing God as a perfect father is sometimes hard to grasp given the vast number of far-from-perfect fathers surrounding us here on this earth. Nonetheless, watching that guy teach his kid to surf was so healing for me.
I feel like we often think that when God asks something of us, it's our responsibility to figure it out and accomplish it...on our own. After all, we are "more than conquerors," right?
Because of this, we tend to get bound up and frozen in fear, not accomplishing much of anything and being miserable through it all.
Yet watching that surfer today reminded me that when God asks something of us, He provides us with protection, tells us exactly what to do, and then comes up behind us to do all the work.
Then He congratulates us for our accomplishment even though in reality we did nothing and He did everything.
All we had to do was say yes to the adventure.
Yes to the protective measures.
Yes to the surfboard.
Yes to the waves.
.