I had seen it many times before, yet as soon as I glimpsed the Galveston ocean on our most recent visit a couple of weeks ago, I felt a strange new sense of wonder.
The water in this ocean is the same water that moves throughout the entire earth. The hydrologic cycle played through my mind, and I delightedly imagined the water in the ocean becoming running rivers and rushing rains. Water brings life. Without it, we would all die. I love water.
Later, awe hit me again even more forcefully as I walked into the waves. The tide pulled strongly while the daylight faded. The waves crashed hard, and each one seemed bigger than the one before. They raged from below my waist to higher than my head in an instant.
The tide tugs every which way, one moment in one direction and the next in the complete opposite. It appears dirty and dismal more often than not, and yet it's still water. It's only a shadow of its pure form, and at times it seems almost beyond recognition, but the ocean is still water, and I need the water.
Isn't life like the ocean?
I stood there enchanted. Only waist-deep, and I knew that the waves and depths endlessly stretching out in front of me could destroy me in a matter of moments, yet looking back at the short distance to the shore, I also knew that I could now stand in water that I was once neither tall enough nor strong enough to withstand. The expanse in front of me continued to surge, ever moving in perfect rhythm, simultaneously thrilling and terrifying.
I think back over the past few months, the last year of my life. At times I get frustrated because I feel as though I spent the entire past year just trying to regain growth that I already had one year ago, repeatedly relearning lessons I thought I knew so well, lessons I should know well by now. Where did it all go?
And then I realize: when did I stop going desperately before the King of the universe?
When the desperation fades, when I forget just how big life actually is and that I need God every second of every minute of every day, that's when I lose sight of what really matters. Yes, I want to see growth, but I want to love the Lord and cling to Him with however little or much that I have even more.
The prayer that God has slowly and patiently taught me to pray is not that I will never waver in my faith - I know too much of myself to trust in my own ability to do that - but rather that when I do fail, that He will faithfully pick me up and draw me closer to Him. The same God who orchestrates the oceans holds me in the palm of His hand.
When life pulls hard and tries to drag us away in the undertow, He only pulls harder and brings us closer to Him.
And He never, ever lets go.
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