Ephesians 4:11-16
Coping with Life's Waves

It was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

New International Version

I want to look at this passage in a different way than Paul's intended when he wrote this to the Ephesians. Paul's emphasis was a call to the unity of that church, so that they would function under God's leadership as the church, and that is what we also should be doing as God's people. What caught my attention this week, however, was one of the side benefits Paul mentions in this passage; when we individually are connected to God's people, we are no longer as easily tossed around by life as we are on our own.

Now, Paul was not using the idiom "tossed back and forth" in the same way that I was thinking about it this week. Paul used one Greek word here, kludonizomai, which means to be tossed here and there by the waves, and it was a description of someone who could not make up their mind and was too easily influenced by others. Paul was calling for the church at Ephesus to stop being distracted and lured away by false teachings, and the best defense against that was to connect firmly and obediently to Christ as the head of the church.

What occurred to me, though, is how often life tosses us around. There are big events, like hurricanes and economic downturns, affecting large numbers of us together. There are personal crises, like a medical emergency or the loss of a job. There are small events, like disappointing results from medical tests, disappointments at work, arguments with loved ones, and even traffic jams, which separately don't bother us, but in large numbers, wear us down like desert sand blowing against rocks.

Here, Paul's analogy works very well. God does not call us to stand rigid, unbending, and unaffected when life batters against us. Instead, we have an anchor, so that the waves move us up and down, but never move us away from where we belong. At the most basic level, that anchor is God's love and grace that never will let us go. But God has given us more than that, for God has given us the community of believers to which we belong, brothers and sisters in the family of God. We are surrounded by God's Presence with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we are surrounded by God's presence living in the lives of believers all around us.

We are never alone. We are never lost at sea with the waves battering us and the winds howling around us, for we belong to God, and we belong to God's people, and God has myriad ways to care for us.

Of course, I think I would rather not have the storms. I fancy an idyllic life where everyone is pleasant, no tragedies ever happen, all work is fun, all deadlines are gracious, and every gadget works the way it is supposed to work. God knows best, and God knows that this is not supposed to be a perfect world. Instead, God provides us perfect ways to ride out the storms in life, growing in our faith and love, so that we are becoming perfect members of the whole body of the church.