Clear water, sandy beaches and gentle breezes.

Escape from the routine pressures of job, traffic and the everyday ordinary; spend a few days on the beach relaxing in the sand with the clear Caribbean water lapping at your feet and the gentle breeze stirring the palm branches overhead. The scene I just painted in your head sounds like freedom, freedom from the restrictive routines that regulate our everyday lives. Take a closer look and “as a rule” that beach scene is filled with routine, rules and restrictions. Jeremiah 5:20-25 tells us many things we can learn from the sea. Read it in your Bible and see if you don’t hear the same things I did.

Jeremiah 5:20-25 (in Martha’s words)
Tell my people to listen to the wisdom of the sea. Learn from her. You see the waves washing on the shore but do not understand. You hear the rolling breakers but don’t listen to what they say. This is what they show you. This is what they say. “Fear the Lord! Don’t go beyond the limits of His Word. Live in respect and response to His ways and directions and the seasons will come as expected. The sea understands that and respects the one who put the beach at the water’s edge then drew a line in the sand and said “don’t cross this line.” The waves try, they wash over the line only to recede again and come back to rest on the seaside of the line. “The sea knows, understands, and fears (respects, reveres, responds to) Me!” But my people do not. They don’t understand, comprehend or understand that fearing Me is for their own good. They resist the boundaries I have laid down for them. They have made their own tsunami by departing from the Lord and not fearing Him."

Fearing God – something we do not often think about and maybe do not understand but it is a good thing. In fact, “the LORD delights in those who fear him,” He takes pleasure in those who understand and respond appropriately to how awesome and powerful and mighty and loving He is (Ps 147:11).