The Beach
For man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward. Job 5:7 NASB
\Trouble – Where do you like to vacation? The mountains? The beach? All those idyllic photos in travel magazines of beautiful blue water and white sand. Colorful umbrellas above nicely padded lounge chairs with a cold beverage close at hand. Warm days and exotic nights. Yes, it’s the beach. Or at least it’s the dream of the beach.
The other side of the beach vacation is Acts 27:41: “The bow stuck fast and would not move, and the stern was broken to pieces by the pounding of the surf.” Shipwrecked. Suddenly that wonderful vacation beach turns into a desolate place of hopelessness. You might survive the wreck, but you’re abandoned on a shore you don’t know with little prospects of survival. Not many of us are cut out to be Robinson Crusoe.
Which beach is the more likely in your life? Or perhaps there is a better question: Which beach is the more necessary? “And this is the simple truth—that to live is to feel oneself lost—he who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look round for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked.”[1]
Perhaps you’ve noticed that great advances, personally and corporately, rarely occur in times of plenty. Genuine art, moments of genius, truly human gains seem to arise from distress. Pain and suffering are the roots of creativity. The shipwrecked change the world. In my experience, stress births best. The troubled soul is the seat of real insight. “All creative thinking comes out of an encounter with the unknown,”[2] writes Heschel. “Creative thinking is not stimulated by vicarious issues but by personal problems.”[3]
“The ways of creative thinking do not always coincide with those charted by traditional logicians; the realm where genius is at home, where insight is at work, logic can hardly find access to.”[4]
“All that is creative stems from a seed of endless discontent.”[5]
Job calls it “trouble,” ʿāmāl. The word does not mean the daily toil of existence. “The root ʿāmal relates to the dark side of labor, the grievous and unfulfilling aspect of work.”[6] Notice the umbrella of translations for this word: Labor, toil, trouble, mischief, sorrow, travail, pain, grievance, grievousness, iniquity, miserable, misery, painful, perverseness, wearisome, wickedness.”[7] There aren’t many bottles of suntan lotion in this list. But perhaps sunburn is more important when it comes to searing the soul. Perhaps all that effort to escape to the dream beach is really the death of our best. Perhaps the hope to avoid life’s real troubles is nothing more than avoidance. The truth is that God didn’t make you to go on vacation. You were kicked out of the Garden, evicted from the beach, in order to do something with the struggle in your soul. Something amazing! Something born from the wreckage.
Topical Index: shipwrecked, trouble, ʿāmāl, creativity, Job 5:7
[1] José Ortega, The Revolt of the Masses, quoted in Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, p. 89.
[2] Abraham Heschel Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism (Free Press Paperbacks, 1959), p. 64.
[3] Abraham Heschel, God in Search of Man (Ferrar, Straus and Giroux, 1955), p. 5.
[4] Abraham Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, p. 17.
[5] Ibid., pp. 257-258.
[6] Allen, R. B. (1999). 1639 עָמָל. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 675). Chicago: Moody Press.
[7] Ibid.
