Ocean's Call

What´s the greatest gift you´ve ever received? The biggest? The costliest? The most memorable? What about the most incomprehensible?
 

What if someone gave you an Ocean?  A private Ocean just for you. What would you do with it? Perhaps you would excitedly stroll along the beach, run barefoot in the sand, play happily in the surf, and be in awe over its vast expanse. “Really?” you ask as you gaze to where the ocean meets the horizon and merges into the sky, “This is all mine? This extravagant, limitless amount of water is all for me?” You inhale the sea breeze deeply and can´t exactly wrap your mind around what´s yours. 

What would you do with it? If you´re a curious type perhaps you´ll take a boat and sail away, determined to explore the immensity before you. But imagine there´s a problem…you refuse to dive in. You avoid getting too wet. You fear being submerged. You are anxious about sinking too deep. The unknown, the incomprehensible, seems a bit risky. So you stick to the shore, you contentedly sail on the surface.

God´s love for you IS your private ocean, but you´ve never encountered it deeply. You have never lost yourself in His infinite love, because you´ve never jumped in unafraid.  

While God is wanting the undertow to sweep us off our feet and pull us into the ocean´s depths, while God is longing to capsize our boat and soak us completely in the salty waters…we have spent our lives playing in the waves and floating untouched on its surface. God´s love is an Ocean and it has belonged to us from ages past and into eternity. We´ve known about and touched it. Maybe we´ve even tasted it and preached about it, but in all honesty we don´t know what to do with it. We don´t know how to let it invade us and captivate our souls. We don´t know how to let it overtake us, sink us, and completely transform us.

“Behold, what manner of LOVE the Father hath bestowed upon us…” It is a fathomless, pristine, and perfectly true LOVE that “casts out fear.” (I John 3:1, 4:18)