God and the Ocean

I love being at the beach.  I love to hear it, see it, smell it, and even taste it via the salty air.  The ocean never ceases to amaze me and to fill me with awe.  Nothing in nature reminds me more of God than the ocean.  Even mountain ranges, as beautiful as they are, still don’t evoke the same sense of awe as the ocean.  I guess because there are so many metaphoric and symbolic connections between the ocean and God.

For instance, we can turn our back and leave the ocean, but it’s still always there.  The same is true of God, while we may turn our back on Him, He is always there.  Another thought is the expansiveness of the ocean; standing on the shore the ocean seemingly goes on forever.  God, of course, does indeed go on forever—He is the always was, always is, and always will be God.  The ocean is deep, and God is deeper still.  The ocean is powerful, and, obviously, so is God. 

There’s other symbolism reminding me of God.  Consider Jesus calming the stormy seas of Galilee (Mt. 8:23ff).  The disciples were terrified and fearful of capsizing and drowning right there and then.  Periodically, squalls would come up on unsuspecting fisherman, engulfing them in raging storms, often claiming the lives of all on board the small fishing vessels.  Matthew 8 is just such a squall. 

Adding even more intrigue to this record is the fact that Jesus is sleeping through it all.  When He was awakened by His panicked disciples, He replied, “You of little faith, why are you afraid?”  Then He did the unthinkable, He calmed the storm, a jaw-dropping experiencing for the disciples to say the least! 

Keeping this record in mind, another element of the beach, at least on this current trip, is the wind.  In fact, I ran yesterday on the beach in winds gusting up to near 60 mph, that’s some heavy wind.  And yet it was exhilarating (perhaps only runners can understand this)!  Wind is a great reminder of the Holy Spirit (see John 3:1-21).  Jesus referred to people being filled with the Holy Spirit as being similar to the wind and in Acts 2:2 the entre of the church is ushered in by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and is documented as being like a rushing wind.  Imagine the power of the Holy Spirit. 

This same Holy Spirit, with this same power, can calm the seas between our ears; so as the storms of life assail us, may we remember that just as Jesus calmed the physical storm, the indwelling Holy Spirit can calm the stormy seas in our souls.