Love Like an Ocean

This afternoon I took a walk and God directed me toward the beach.  I hope all of you were able to spend some time outside, today.  The way the winter sun danced on the frost and illuminated the veil of fog over the Puget Sound was absolutely breathtaking!  I had a lot of questions for God, today, and, to be honest, I was angry - not for any particular reason, which only compounded my frustration.  Asking God for peace and thanking Him for His incredible patience with me, my spirit gradually calmed.  Finally, standing on the beach, I said Well, I'm here, Lord.  I was struck by the beauty and serenity of the waters.  I watched the waves form, then sigh as they met with the beach and slowly returned from whence they had come. I am in awe of the ocean - its beauty, power, rage, and serenity all in one.  As I consider it, the ocean points me to its creator more and more.  Like the ocean, God has many characteristics, seemingly conflicting when only named, yet all in agreement, forming God's perfection.  This shared attribute of God and the ocean reminds me of C.S. Lewis' comment on Aslan throughout the "Chronicles of Narnia" series: "He is not a tame lion".  God and the ocean.  So exquisite, so wild.  The concept is so beautiful to me!

The ocean is big.  I may stand by the ferry landing, look across the Puget Sound and see Kingston and deceive myself into thinking the ocean is smaller than it is, but the ocean is so much larger than the small section I can see.  I hope someday to find myself in the middle of the ocean, with nothing but water as far as I can see.  Even perceiving it completely, the vastness of the ocean is nothing compared to God.  Compared to God's presence, it is infinitely smaller than a subatomic particle.  Doesn't that blow your mind? Despite God's vastness, it is all too easy to only see the Puget Sound of God's great ocean and, thereby deceiving oneself, believe He is much smaller and possesses much less power than He does in reality.  It is human tendency to belittle God's power and put Him in a box, saying God can't do that, when the need surpasses the powers we have relegated to Him.  We are so foolish!  God is infinite in both size and power.  Our incomprehension of these things is inevitable.  Our attempts to control God, to limit His sovereignty, on the other hand, look plain ridiculous.  Our God is not tame, nor will He ever be, despite our best efforts to limit Him.  I am most certainly thankful for that.  What would my life look like if God conformed to my idea of His power?  I would be stuck in the hardest circumstances of life with no hope of escape.  Praise God that He is more powerful than we can ever imagine!

I have always been drawn to water.  If there are waves, I want to stand before them and allow them to crash over me.  I didn't need God to say, What are you waiting for?  Get in there!  But He did anyway :) In a few seconds (that seemed much too long) I stood in the path of the water, jeans rolled up, shoes in hand.  The water was the clearest I have seen it in years, exquisite.  I longed for it.  I wanted to feel the beauty, the freezing refreshment. I expected it to be cold.  I knew it was cold.  Then the wave broke over my feet.  It was cold!  How silly.  Really, Emily?  You already knew that.  It doesn't matter how many times you step into cold water, though.  It is always a shock that causes a quick inhale and occasionally a slight hop-skip.  I react the very same way every time I encounter God's grace and love for me.  Surely I know that "nothing... [is] able to separate us from the love of God" (Romans 8:39) and He loves me unconditionally, but I am still shocked when that grace and love is extended to me.  God says, "Come" and I respond with "Whoah.  Hold on there!  That is not the way this should work!"  When met with open arms, I step back, if only for a moment, to let God know that His ways are strange.  Maybe I half expect Him to reconsider sometime.  I should know better.  Christ died for my sins so that God can welcome me back without fail, no matter what stupid thing I have done this time.  Such is the beauty of grace. 

After the initial shock, the coldness of the water feels so good, even though the air temperature rests in the mid-40's.  I probably thought warm, dry shoes were nice, but it cannot compare to wading through the icy cold. The water quickly becomes what seems natural.  I turned my back on the water and walked back toward dry sand, intending to reintroduce my shoes to their rightful place, but I looked back at the gentle swells and yearned to be back in it.  How could I leave?  Back to the water I strode and waded through it along the beach.  God's grace is irresistible.  When I stop seeking him with my whole heart, settling for "good enough" I yearn for so much more - what I knew and rested in before.  Walking in God's grace, how can I keep from desiring to be anything less than radical?  Completely sold out to the great I AM.

As I walked along, the waves gently lapping at me, I noticed the shells.  Some were whole.  Some were broken.  And I watched as the waves brought the broken pieces to the beach and set them down to rest.  Sometimes the pieces fall back, poised to tumble back into helplessness.  That is when the next wave comes and nudges it a little farther up the beach, a little at a time until the broken shell is secure.  I am like these shells: broken, helpless, with no means by which to save  myself.  That is when the grace of God comes to rescue me and sets me upon the beach to rest.  When other things push me back toward utter defeat and hopelessness, God does not abandon me.  He gently nudges me toward safety.

As I neared the concrete walkway jutting out into the water, inevitably ending my trek, a little boy passed by with his mother and sister on the sidewalk above.  He pointed at me and exclaimed, "Look what she's doing, mom!" with astonished amazement.  This didn't bother me in the slightest.  I was certainly doing something worth noticing.  My actions were strange, out of place.  No one else would even consider removing their shoes and walking in the water in this weather as I did.  Nevertheless, it was good that I did because I loved it.  If we truly seek God with our whole hearts, people will notice.  Like the boy today, they will look at us and think, That's strange!  No one else is doing that!  It is good that people recognize a difference when we seek God wholeheartedly.  If they don't, my guess is we are doing something wrong.

Well, I came to the end of my strip of beach, so I walked the yard or two back to the wall that separates the fray, Washington sand from the raised sidewalk and clambered atop it.  A woman walked by as I fixed my jeans and attempted to clean my shoes enough to be practical.  "How was it?", she inquired, smiling.  "Good", I replied with a joyful smile to match her own smile of humored incredulousness.  Good.  So good.  You have no idea.  The world saw a girl who was either slightly crazed or had a distorted idea of fun with soaked, dirty, cold feet.  But it was so much more than walking in freezing cold water during late fall to me!  I was communing with my Father.  When the woman asked "how was it?", I wasn't really thinking about the water.  I was thinking of the peace and contentment He had brought into my soul while I did this crazy thing I love.

I sat on that ledge  for a while, staring at the water, the waves.  Have you ever noticed the texture of the water's surface?  Even if "waves" are not forming, the water is always moving.  The same is true of God's grace and love.  He does not stand back and watch us struggle, he pursues us.  His love is always on the move.  It never lies dormant.  That would be impossible!  Can you imagine the ocean completely still, with not a single molecule shifting within it?  The water would not be water, the ocean would not be the ocean, God's love would not be God's love if it wasn't active. 

Eventually, I moved to a bench on the concrete outcropping where, rather than facing the ocean head on, my gaze followed the line of the beach.  The sun shone down on the waves pooled upon the beach, turning them to pure gold.  God's creation dazzles me.  It was so bright I could not look consistently at its entirety.  I often chose a small segment of beach and watched each wave flow in an out of its reach.  This, too, reminded me of God's greatness.  I can neither see nor comprehend the entirety of God's plan, His grace, His love.  I can grasp but tiny increments of different aspects of Him.  How awesome is the Lord our God that only a glimpse of who He is confounds our naive minds. 

Soon after I sat down, a man came and settled himself on the bench next to mine.  We smiled and greeted one another like old friends.  Then he said, "Days like this bring you hope, don't they?".  "Yes, they do", I replied.  Then he said something about spring and winter ending but I didn't quite catch it.  I was lost in the wonder of the hope and peace the Lord had granted me in the last two hours of contemplating his beautiful creation.  Today, Philippians 4:6 held true for me - "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, in prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."   

I used to sing "Peace Like a River" in choir, at church, as a preschooler. The second verse says "I've got love like an ocean, I've got love like an ocean, I've got love like an ocean in my soul".  This rang so true for me today.  God is love and He is like an ocean, but He is so much more.  He is so much bigger, so much more powerful than that.  I could sing "I've got love like a universe" and it would be hardly any closer to God's magnitude.  As it is, I have yet to grasp the idea of love like an ocean.  The Creator amazes me.  I pray I will one day be able to fully grasp the grandeur of love like an ocean.  Until then, I will strive to rest in my Father's peace that transcends all understanding, coming to know Him more and more when I seek Him with my whole heart.