Walking by the sea is supposed to be good for your health. It is not just the walking, which we know is healthful, but also the sea air, the minerals and salts that the wind carries in along the coastline. Breathing them clears the mind and the lungs.
The rhythm of the waves coming and going,
the rhythm of the tides ebbing and flowing,
the sea birds circling and calling:
another perspective in a world out of control.
Even in the midst of a storm,
a wild peace reigns and impacts my soul.
Maybe that is why the poets and hymn writers compared the love of God with the sea. “Here is love vast as the ocean, loving kindness as the flood” (William Rees, 1802 – 1883).
The ocean is steady and relentless, just as the love of God is steady and doesn’t give up on us, but keeps coming and coming and coming. We may turn away and run, but that doesn’t stop God’s pursuit of us. We may go through times when we don’t feel the love of God, but that doesn’t mean that God has stopped loving us or is no longer there.
When you stand on the shore and look out across the ocean, it seems to stretch out forever. The vast size of the sea is one reason so many writers have called it “the Great Deep.” If we fell off a boat and sank down into the water, it wouldn’t be long before we were overwhelmed and drowned. The writers of the Bible spoke often of the “deep”, usually in negative terms. They didn’t know what was down there — it was dark and dangerous — and many odd and deadly creatures made the deep their home.
When circumstances overpowered the writers of the Psalms, and they felt crushed and helpless, they cried out to God “out of the depths.” Over and over, we read that God rescued them, delivered them, pulled them from the depths.
How can God do that unless he goes deeper than this dark foreboding, overwhelming flood of terror and tears? He can rescue us because He is already there in the turmoil, reaching out to us as we scream for help.
As is so often the case, when we are presented with a picture of something with a spiritual meaning behind it, we find that God invites us into a greater truth. In the case of the oceans, we find that God’s love is “vast as the ocean”, in fact, “vaster”. Rather than just a measure of the surface area, God’s love is far deeper than even the Marianna Trench.
What comes our way can be pretty awful sometimes, but that does not prevent us from being filled with and surrounded on every side by the love of God. We can be in the middle of conflict, perhaps, and turn our heart and mind towards God. We find a peace inside us that belies the shouts and accusations around us. As we come out on the other side of the battle, God can give us strength and stability again, and bring healing.
The depth of God’s love is constant and influences us every day. In the same way that the ocean is always moving, always varying its “clothing”, always transforming the land and supplying the land with water for life, so God is always moving, always showing fresh aspects of himself, always changing us and giving us what we need for life, abundant life.
Often, when I go to bed at night, I am still discussing (arguing?) the issues and difficulties of the day. I may feel weighed down by things that have happened or that people have said to me. And that is when I turn to this old hymn and use my imagination to sink into the love of God. There I find peace and rest.
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free.
Flowing like a mighty ocean in its fullness over me.
Underneath me, all around me is the current of Thy love.
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above.
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best
‘Tis an ocean vast of blessing, ‘tis a haven sweet of rest.
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ‘tis a heaven of heavens to me;
For it lifts me up to glory, lifts me up, o Lord, to Thee!
S. Trevor Francis (1834 – 1925)
http://hymnbook.igracemusic.com/hymns/o-the-deep-deep-love-of-jesus
Molly Deatherage 