If you have ever considered the idea of taking up either surfing, or wind surfing, I thought that you might appreciate a bit of advice before investing in a board, wet suit and all the gear you will need. Not that I have even touched a surfboard in my entire life, nor am ever likely to. I had never realized just how labour-intensive wind surfing was, Karen and I sat eating our lunch in the car park at the scenic Daymer Bay on the estuary to the river Camel across the water form Padstow in Cornwall, a man parked alongside our car, took his board out of his car, negotiated his way down the steps onto the beach, deposited the board, then walked back to the car, unpacked his sail and inflated it using a stirrup pump, he then went into contortions squeezing into his wet suit, then carried the sail down onto the beach and walked against the flow of the tide out into the water holding his sail in one hand and the board in the other, he must have stepped up onto his board a staggering half an hour after parking up and must have worked off a shed load of calories in the process of simply starting his hobby.
I am sure that you will understand me when I say that by the time I had finished eating my sandwich, any ideas I might have harboured even for a few seconds about gliding across the water on a wind surf board were well and truly forgotten, I would have given up before the wet suit had even worked its way past my knees! I can forgive you for pointing out, that without all the effort, I would never experience the glory and there was a bit of me that felt envious as I watched this man, along with others, fill the sail and skim across the water at speed, I can only imagine how exhilarating it must have felt for him, and he might just have spared a moments pity for me sitting and watching him having the time of his life. I sincerely hope that all the people who put the effort in, find that the rewards are worth it. During our holidays we saw hundreds of people squeezing their way into wetsuits and taking to the water, either wind surfing, paddle boarding, or surfing and good for them, I say.
Perhaps this whole experience was a salutary reminder that we only get out of life what we put in and there will always be a line of people standing on the seashore who can only imagine what it feels like to be experiencing the kind of feelings those out in the water are enjoying. I am like a lot of people, I guess, I want the experience without putting the effort in. Maybe that is why so many people buy lottery tickets, on the off chance that for a two-pounds stake, you could have wealth beyond belief, the least amount of effort, for the maximum return. As Christians, we might well mock this attitude, but over the years, I have seen the same kind of thing happen repeatedly, as Churches have prayed in earnest that the Holy Spirit will bring about revival, that new families will start coming along and that God will gift us with a huge congregation of people that look and think like us, and we sit back and wait for God to get on with the job in hand.
The problem I see with this approach is that we are expecting God to do all the work and if God can’t come up with the goods, then we pray that he will send us the right minister who can perform. The key, I believe is that when church communities work with their minister in an equal partnership and are together led by God in the power of the Holy Spirit, then, I believe that we will experience the very best that God can offer to us. If we are to share the exhilarating feeling of skimming across the water, with the sun on our backs and the wind in our hair, then we need invest time and energy in getting equipped and walking against the tide. I’m sure that the reward will always be worth the effort!