Some of you may know that I grew up in Cali. In my first 19 years of life I moved all up and down the coast.
- Santa Maria
- El Cajon (San Diego)
- Pomona
- Santa Barbara
- Sunnyvale.
Each one of those cities, save the dreadful town that is Pomona, had a beach not more than 45 minutes away. In the awesome town of SB, I could literally ride my bike and be on the waves in 30 minutes. I started off trying to be a cool California surfer-dude, but being a soccer player all of my friends were boogie-boarders. I’m not talking white-water warriors or foam freaks, I’m talking Drop-Knee, 360’n Barrel Rollin’ fools who stuck together and could hunt in packs.
Surfers, beware.
On the days the waves came in slow, and as we would wait for “sets” it would be so peaceful out in the water. You look one way towards the beach, and there are all the people playing frisbee, laughing, running, playing, tanning, or whatever.
You look the other way, and see water as far as the eye can see. To us human’s, that’s probably the closest thing we could ever visualize as “forever” or “infinite.” Kind of like God’s grace.
I’ll mention once again just how much the lyrics to How He Loves just gets to me, so much I can’t even sing it when it’s on the set list on Sunday, and being a visual type of person, this is the picture I get in my head when I hear the line “If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.”
No matter how big a “sinner” you think you have become God’s grace is bigger, and even if you’re not necessarily a “God believer,” or if you are and you’ve felt as though you just aren’t worthy enough of Grace, or love, any love, His Love…
If you have a difficult time believing that or grasping the concept, comment below or shoot me message and we’ll talk.
One of my favorite songs as well. To me it simply brings up the picture of endless, limitless grace. It is vast, huge, deep and powerful.
Almost, like… if any of us were randomly tossed into the middle of the ocean, we would all sink. No matter how hard we tried to keep afloat, after time, we would sink. The ocean is so huge we could try and swim to land but we would still sink.
And, while sinking are you still making that face in your gravatar? You’d probably swallow a lot of grace doing that…
Ben,
Grace is an ocean we can walk on. Like faith.
Song lyric that hits me hard? Third Day’s Consuming Fire has the line:
Yesterday was the day I was alone, now I’m in the presence of Almighty God.
Shivers, every time.
Awesome.
Dude,
I remember as a high schooler standing armpit deep in the Atlantic looking out at the horizon and talking about walking to England. It was a big joke because as I stood there, I was overwhelmed at the sheer vastness of the ocean and how gorgeous it is. Everytime I consider that the God who created that same ocean cares for me despite how severely I have screwed up in this life and wants a personal relationship with me, I am overwhelmed with gratitude and lose the ability to speak or sing. I just weep incontrollably and smile.
-Peace
Sometimes that’s all we can do is weep, and that’s ok.
Walking to England: I had the same aspiration when I was 6, except replace “walking” with “digging” and “England” with China.”
I love that song. It tells me that no matter how many times I screw up His grace will never expire or run out. And it makes me want to honor Him even more.
Newsboys song “He Reigns.” It says “It’s all God’s people singing Glory, Glory, Hallelujuah, He Reigns.” It makes me picture people from all over the world standing in one place singing praises to the Father. Much like Heaven.
It helps that a whole choir sings that, I bet Heaven’s going to be a bazillion times that!
Dude, I have yet to get through “How He Loves Us” a single time w/out choking up. I’m convinced it’s impossible.
I’m with KC. It’s a great song, very moving. One of my faves.
“Wait” by The Afters does that to me.
I second that.
My visual is sort of the same, except I’m in the middle of the ocean on a little boat and in it are all of my sins. I hate them and God does too, and I want to get away from them, but I find that everywhere around the boat is an ocean and it’s grace and even if I wanted to pass it through or jump over it, I find that I can’t. Even with all of my effort, I end up deep inside the ocean of grace… and that’s pretty rad!
Oh, one more thing. If you open your eyes under the “grace” ocean, you can see all of the people in it. I think I saw you throwing up East Coast gang sign. Is that you?
Nice visual Moe, especially with the “little sins,” I pictured a bunch of little piranha’s, and Kudo’s for using Rad!
That is me in there. *wave*
What an awesome picture to go with that song. You can almost feel and smell the ocean mist. I used to love to sit at the Harbor in San Diego and just listen to the sounds of the ocean – it was so soothing. The waves have a rythm all to themselves and as you are immersed in them (swimming, boogy boarding, etc) you feel His majesty and strength surround you. Overwhelming – definitely when you hear this song.
Oh man, you had to bring back the Harbor SD. The entire beach when everybody’s gone, is so so soothing. Love it.
My favorite song is a super old hymn–It is Well With My Soul. The 3rd verse is the one that stands out: “My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought/My sin not in part but in whole/Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more/Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord/Oh my soul.”
Amen, Ben. There is truly nothing more amazing than God’s grace
Oh, I get it now……. God’s grace is so deep and so wide and so much that a believer can just drown in it! Very cool…..Cuz He loves us. Oh how He loves us.