THE WAVES

Every Saturday morning I devote time to pray and listen to God. There’s a park near my home with a bench in a perfect location to admire the trees and overlook the city. This past Saturday started like most. I was up at sunrise and getting ready for the day. Looking out the kitchen window I could see the pine trees being strained back and forth from the strong wind. It was 15 degrees Fahrenheit with a 25MPH wind; not the most favorable conditions to sit on a park bench. I decided to stay home. We have a sunroom with large windows that looks into our backyard and it’s a good substitute. The view faces east through the pine trees, a perfect view of the sunrise. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in the woods under worse conditions and am not intimidated by it. My focus is to pray and listen to God. However, it’s hard to stay focused when your teeth are chattering. During this time of worship my attention kept getting drawn to the trees flexing from side to side and twisting in every direction. The branches whirled around with every gust of wind. The trunk flexed slightly, but held it composure being anchored by its healthy roots. The long needles of the white pine resembled waves in the water; rolling up and down, from small ripples to huge rollers. It reminded me of the first self-guided fishing trip to Lake Superior with a good friend.

My fishing boat is a 17.5 foot deep V with a 115 horsepower outboard motor. If the conditions were right there wouldn’t be any problems. The first morning on the lake seemed perfect. The lake was calm with heavy fog. As the morning went on and the fog cleared we got more confident on the big lake and headed further away from the marina. Being our first trip out we did a bunch of online research, but had no idea of what we were really in for. The fishing was terrible because a huge storm had blown through the night before. The further we got from the marina the windier it got and the bigger the waves got. At that time we didn’t know enough to check wind and waves reports. We later found out a small craft advisory had been issued for that area, which means if we ran into trouble we were on our own. There came a point that we realized we were out of our element and started to pull in the fishing gear. By the time the gear was all in we were even further away from the marina and the waves were still growing. There was a peninsula ahead that would be a perfect location to get behind, turn around, and head back to the marina.

We should've went surfing instead

Knowing the trip back was going to be rough; we secured everything and headed into the waves. The look on our faces was probably of astonishment as we came around the peninsula. The waves were four feet tall with swells up to five feet. We were indecisive on how to proceed. So, I started into the waves just a little faster than an idle speed. The wind was blowing us from side to side, while the waves were rolling us up and down. Our view was either into the water or up at the sky as we bobbed around. We weren’t getting ahead and remained at the mercy of our surroundings. Waves were starting to crash on the bow of the boat. Something had to change. I made the decision to increase our speed. By increasing the speed I was able control our direction better and focus on keeping the bow up. It was still a very rough ride, but we weren’t at the mercy of our surroundings anymore.

We finally made it back to the marina. Later that day we found an inland lake with puny one foot waves and caught a few nice walleyes. We have returned many times to Lake Superior with much better results.

James 1:6 "But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind."





My buddy's video of the trip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO2JxJ8rxW4