{musings}

The beach has always held a certain fascination for me. The salt smell, constant wind-drawn waves, the enormity...the way the roar of the crashing surf somehow creates a sense of perfect peace, of soothing, of renewing…the way it makes me feel so small and insignificant. And I always feel this so much more when the surf is high…

…And more so with riptides.

That strong channel flowing seaward from near the shore, its beginning disguised in the surf line. The thing feared by beginner and seasoned swimmers alike. Interestingly, though, the main danger is not in the tide itself – a rip tide’s main power is close to the surface, and does not actually pull people under; it merely drags an object along until it deposits the object in calm deeper waters. The danger lies in being knocked over by the waves, then unable to surface as the tide draws a person deeper, or in an exhausting escape attempt of the swimmer.

It’s always a disturbing feeling to be pummeled by sand and waves while already under water, twisting, and with nothing to grasp and resurface. But at the same time, it’s an awe-striking feeling – a feeling of insignificance – that something is so powerful to toss a body like nothing more than a bit of seaweed. This ocean that overwhelms people and minute objects with equal ease…

And I think of the hymn that compares Christ’s love to an ocean.

Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus,

Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free,

Rolling as a mighty ocean

In its fullness over me.

Underneath me, all around me

Is the fullness of Thy love.

Leading onward, leading homeward,

To Thy glorious rest above.

Deep love…not shallow. Not safe love. Deep, and boundless…free, unrestrained, a mighty ocean of love. The song doesn’t say the love flows by, in nice pristine streams whenever you’re interested in acquiring some. It rolls over, overwhelming by its fullness over, underneath, and all around, and we never see an end to it.

And if His love is like an ocean, life must be like the crashing waves and rip tides, because things pummel, twist, and disorient, dragging away from goals, plans, and ideas into unknown waters. Waters we would never venture into of our own accord. If so, then, the danger isn’t in the tide – not in the events, or tears, or pain – the danger is in fighting it. In exhausting ourselves in our own efforts to escape.

And if waves and tides have so much power, how much more does the God of the universe have the power to hold us gently, drawing us by life tides into the calm of His peace?  If He indeed has a perfect plan, are not these waves simply bringing us to our knees before our Creator, and the tides pulling us into His presence? Tearing us out of our comfort zone into places where we can only live through Him who strengthens us?

And they lead us to rest….in His love.