The ocean has a way of reducing me. Minimizing my world appropriately.  Diminishing my apparent importance.  Decreasing my seeming necessity. Lessening, little by little with every wave, my life.

And for good reason. There’s something about the sheer magnitude and unrelenting consistency of the sea that exposes my lack of both. Endless miles of water, faithfully moving in and out century after century, all under the control of the Almighty Creator. Never late. Never early. Always on time. As far as my eye can see, the deep, mostly unexplorable, often unexplainable, no doubt uncontainable fountains that cover over half the globe powerfully move along unstoppable from shore to shore. There’s just something about all that water that is mind-boggling. Soul-stirring. Heart-pounding.

And for good reason. Many days I can barely manage all that happens under a single address. What would I do with an entire sea—or seas? I struggle to keep my week’s schedule on time. How would I manage the daily ebbs and flows of the ocean for over 6,000 years? I can barely keep my hands around a few deep issues at one time. How would I manage the dark caverns of the saltwater world? I can hardly put together a single sermon. Yet, the oceans were formed by a single breath, a word from God that carved out these bodies of water we call the Atlantic. Pacific. Mediterranean. Black. Indian. Adriatic. You get the picture.

So as I walked with Julie along the shore of Indian Rocks Beach, my life suddenly, and necessarily, shrank. And God promptly, and inevitably, grew. I decreased; He increased.  Todd was minimized; God was maximized.

That’s what I love about the ocean—it drowns the pride that would take me under and loudly roars the name of the Lord.

Amos 9:6

“…He who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the face of the earth, The LORD is his name.”

Psalm 93:4

“More than the sounds of many waters, than the mighty breakers of the sea, the LORD on high is mighty.”