Sound Machine | Wayfarer

Sea storms are up, God,
Sea storms wild and roaring,
Sea storms with thunderous breakers.
Stronger than wild sea storms,
Mightier than sea-storm breakers,
Mighty God rules from High Heaven.
Psalm 93:3-4 (MSG)

Of the 17, 260 days I’ve woken up on this earth the vast majority of them have been in Iowa. Iowa is a beautiful land. I love living here. We have rolling waves of grain (mostly corn), but there is a serious lack of ocean waves. I can speak of wild thunderstorms and tornadoes, but raging sea storms are scarce in a landlocked state without a sea.

When I married Wendy, I quickly discovered that she sleeps with a sound machine. In particular, she sleeps to the sound of ocean waves. And, now, so do I. In fact, I’ve gotten so used to the sound of giants waves breaking onto the shore at night that I have audio tracks of ocean waves on my cell phone, iPad and computer so that when I’m on the road I can sleep to the sound of ocean waves and try to pretend that I’m home.

As I read the lyric of today’s psalm I came across these verses linking the ocean breakers to mighty God, I was instantly reminded of the ocean waves that lull me to sleep each night. What I have appreciated from our sound machine and from my too few experiences at the ocean is the constancy of the ocean waves. So constant, in fact, that you begin to forget that they are there. They become white noise in the background of our minds. Ever present and totally forgotten.

God is like that in my life far too often. Almighty, powerful, and majestic, yet the constancy of His presence becomes white noise which recedes into my subconscious and I fail to recognize and appreciate it.