There is something extra wild about having the bow of your boat crash through a wave and feeling the spray hit you in the face. I love it! In that moment, I feel like a viking, a pirate, an explorer all at once. It makes me want to laugh and roar. Usually, though, I just grin real big. I think it’s the Canadian half of me.

This week when I went out to kayak, I found I was facing a good wind running right up Loch Melfort. The water was choppy, but the waves weren’t big yet here in Fearnach Bay, and I was committed. So out I went, paddling into the wind.

I tried tucking my chin to help the brow of my hat keep from flipping up, but I was only partially successful. I dug deep and pushed hard, and my kayak shot across the water. I felt strong and alive, and every so often my bow would crash through a series of low waves. I was a pirate-viking-explorer and grinning ear to ear. For a while at least.

Paddling into the wind can certainly make you feel strong and very alive, but it is also hard work. And eventually everybody tires. I got to the edge of the sheltered part of Fearnach Bay, and the uninterrupted wind coming down Loch Melfort hit me. The waves grew larger, and I thought, “Maybe I shouldn’t go quite as far today as I usually go.” My muscles were already a little tired.

I did know the return trip would be easier with the wind behind me, but it wasn’t the trip back that was really concerning. It was the turning around.

My kayak is not a sea kayak. It’s a touring kayak of some sort, and it does not have a waterproof skirt. When I turn my kayak around, there is a long moment when I am broadside to everything. In this long moment, my kayak and I are at our most vulnerable as the wind and waves together push into us in the direction of our least stable axis. This is when I am most likely to capsize. As the wind blew spray into my face, I knew that I was going to have to face that turn at some point, and I knew I should make reverse course when I still had the strength to manage it.

Turning around is risky any time we find ourselves presented with that choice.  In that long moment where we think “Do I or don’t I?” we are vulnerable to being capsized by the forces of nature and our environment. Voices around us (and within) ask us what we are doing. If that’s not enough, turning around assails not just our direction but our pride. Could I go just a bit further? Is this admitting defeat? It’s a shame to turn around now! For these reasons we sometimes push on past where we should and just go till we can’t go anymore. At that point, the wind inevitably has its way with us and turns us anyway, and with tired arms we are often cast into the waves.

The Bible does not shy away from this moment of vulnerability. There are a myriad of stories of people who got rolled in the turnaround. My favorite one, though, is the story of Elijah found in 1 Kings 19. Elijah has been paddling into the wind for years, battling the idolatry of his nation and its king. Finally, after a moment of miraculous triumph on the top of Mount Carmel where the entire nation decides to turn around, Elijah is broadsided by a threat to his life. In this precarious turning point, the man of God is thrown into waves of fear and despair, and a panicked Elijah flees into the wilderness. None of this is really surprising. It is how God responds to him that is incredible to me.

Rather than tell Elijah to pull it together and get back on the right track, God brings Elijah food. When Elijah is spent from all his running, God provides him with a safe place of retreat so that he can rest. When Elijah is finally ready to talk, God doesn’t lecture Elijah on his failure of faith, but instead quietly asks him what he’s doing. And when Elijah pours out his anxieties and exasperation, God addresses each one carefully and with an eye on Elijah’s recovery. Only then does God lay out a plan for how both God and Elijah will work together with others so Elijah need not not navigate the winds and waves alone.

The gentleness of God’s approach to his anxiety-ridden friend is amazing to me. How encouraging is it that  when I find myself a stumbling failure swept away by the surf, God does not approach me with wrath and retribution?! Not only that, but here also is a model to follow when I find my friends trapped in fear and exhaustion, getting rolled by the waves. It is a model of gentle care for the physical components of exhaustion, a patient, tenderhearted and pro-active response to the sources of fear, and only after that a plan for moving forward together.