A pastor friend and I are working on a set of recordings for an upcoming online training session for pastors in Liberia, but we took a break to walk by the sea. Living in land-locked states all my life has meant that such opportunities are few and far between, but they always have been memorable.
The first thing you notice about the ocean is the waves, for even before you can see them, you hear them crashing over one another making their way up the sandy beach. Then, the horizon hits you with its utter vastness. It’s impossible to tell how far you can see, but you are aware of its sheer immensity. Here is an uncrossable barrier, still you wonder what lies directly in front of you, should you make your way to the other side.
Then your thoughts race to what lies under the surface of the vastness, and you imagine the fish, coral, sharks, whales, squid, and jellyfish all sharing this fascinating ecosystem totally unlike anything on land. Most of the creatures don’t have lungs, but manage in other ways to draw life-sustaining oxygen from the water. As you walk you pass by the remnants of the shellfish who lived and died in this water wonderland.
Then you look at the sand beneath your feet stretching for miles inland, and realize that this ocean was once larger than it is, much larger, and that this wide walking path once was many, many fathoms below the surface of the water.
It’s a little overwhelming, and then a lot overwhelming when you let all of it begin to sink in. We live in a world so rich with treasures that it would take ten or twenty lifetimes to explore them.
And then, we remember that we can enjoy them all the more because they are gifts from our Heavenly Father who created all of this, made us humans its stewards, revealed Himself in the person of His Son, and invites us into a relationship with Him.
Your reach for words. “Blessed” hardly does it justice.
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“And God said, ‘Let the waters under heaven be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so.”
Genesis 1:9