Oceans

“If his grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking”  “Your grace abounds in deepest waters” These lines are lyrics from a couple of my favorite worship songs. They’re not my favorite because of their popularity among the church culture, although I probably wouldn’t have heard them if they were not popular-but they are my favorite because of these individual lines here. I have spent more time thinking about these two lines than maybe any other lyrics of any other song. Why? Because I have a fear of the ocean. Why? I have no idea. I have never had a seriously bad encounter with the deep waters of the ocean. I once was stung by jelly fish in the Gulf Shores, twice in a row actually. Besides flying over the ocean, I have only ever been off the shoreline once when I visited the platform my dad used to work on. But even then I was high above the water and very safe, even though that grate for a floor to see the deep abyss beneath me sent me clinging to the railing. It is so deep. SO DEEP! Some parts of the ocean haven’t even been discovered yet [I may be completely making that up; either way, that thought terrifies me]. Perhaps one of the things which scares me about the ocean is how little I know about it. I have seen countless movies about the wild and scary creatures living there-duuunuh….and even more movies about people’s planes crashing into the ocean, or being ship wrecked. Maybe I watch too many movies-I’m going to say that is a fact. What I know about the ocean has not been gained by my own experience. So what does all of this have to do with my favorite lyrics? “If his grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking” This is from John Mark McMillan’s popular song “How He Loves Us”. What I love about this lyric is how it represents the act of receiving grace. We cannot earn grace, it is something that God chooses to bestow on us, because He loves us. And when He does this, there is nothing we can do but live. Does that make sense? So picture yourself in a pool. You can picture yourself in the ocean if you like, but if you are like me and want to avoid a small panic attack, start out with a pool. Now, imagine you are holding your breath and lying flat somewhat on top of the water. Now let that breath out through your nose and you start to sink to the bottom. Our instincts tell us to start kicking our legs and moving our arms to get us back afloat. Our lungs begin working overtime with adrenaline to take that air back in. Now, imagine yourself in the deep, deep ocean. Go ahead, try it out…I’m panicking a little with you. No land in sight. No life jacket. No raft. Not even goggles or a snorkel. No telling what is in the water with you. You’ve been treading water for far too long and you are worn out. You begin to sink. But instead of the feeling of suffocation, something miraculous happens-you are still breathing! It is not like breathing air for you are under water, but that does not stop your lungs. You no longer have to move your body, it is in a total state of relaxation. And you sink. Deeper and deeper into that overwhelming dark abyss. Your eyes adjust and you are able to see what you could not before. The beasts which live there, though terrifyingly big still, are swimming so freely in that home of theirs. They cannot harm you. Nothing can harm you. And you continue to sink, not drown. “Your grace abounds in deepest waters” (Oceans by Hillsong United) The deeper into the ocean one goes, the higher the pressure one encounters. But one would suffocate before even reaching the bottom. “Oxygen becomes TOXIC under pressure.  21% of air is oxygen – this becomes toxic at depth, so there are different artificial gasses and different levels of oxygen in some [scuba] tanks, allowing divers to go deeper. The maximum depth [one can dive is] 1800 feet. Beyond that, there is no way for divers to breathe.”-someone on the internet who knows more than me. We were not meant to breathe under water, that is obvious. When we are thrown into that scary scenario I laid out for you up there, we are not where we were intended to be. There are safe ways for us to experience the ocean, but up there [scenario] is not it. God created us to live in perfect community with Him. When sin entered the world, we were then separated from God. But because of GRACE, God made a way for us to live with Him again; faith. Specifically, for you and I today, faith in Jesus Christ. Even in grace, we still sin. But to the believer, grace may have become like second nature-no longer feeling supernatural. For the one who has never encountered it, it is the most freeing experience in the world. The truth is, however, we were all on the bottom of that ocean floor-out of air and lifeless. No one could swim to the top, no one could go lower. And most times, it is when we are in the deepest parts of the ocean where we really see God’s grace as most awesome. We all have the equal abyss of grace for God to come to us through. Won’t you let Him? All we have to do after grace is trust and follow Him. So let that sink in. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8-10

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