Oceans

I was listening to a lecture the other day for a course I am a taking and on two separate points, I felt a nagging at my heart. It was like God was saying “Pay attention to this, Katie. This is something you need to hear right now.” After processing it through, I’ve now thought maybe I need to pass on my thoughts to others.

My thoughts were snagged at the first point, when he began discussing Biblical references to water and “the deep” of Genesis 1:2. The lecturer was explaining that often times this passage of the deep as being sin, evil, and deception in the Bible, but instead it was formless and but it was about to be given life through the breath of God.

Hmm… bear with…switching gears for a moment now.

We all have our things that make us uncomfortable and the discomfort easily slips into varying degrees of fear. I don’t even have to think about mine, or maybe I spend too much time thinking about mine. The thing(s) that make me most uncomfortable is being in water and anything that occurs below the surface of large bodies of water. From the shifting sands below my feet when I stand knee deep and the animals that live below, to the cracks and crevices of land that has shifted and changed over time. Even the thought of the large amount of wreckage from storms that has been lost to the depths of the sea, it awful. I just don’t like it. Mainly, I would talk the about my discomfort of how animals are on the far end of the scale for it all in creeping me out. I avoid them at all cost in the ocean, lakes, or aquariums. And I do not, I repeat DO NOT, enter their territory. Mind you, I know that many animals can move quietly, can appear out of nowhere, and have the power to overtake me quite easily, and not just those animals dwelling in water. Humans too, have the same behavior. Yet, under the surface of the water so much more is at risk than just the animals.

Ironically, I have lived within close proximity of the ocean (100 miles or less) for more than 20 years of my life. I love spending time on the beach. The smell and sounds of the beach is an incredible gift to my senses. And now that I’m living in the desert, the ocean is the environment I miss more than any other. This origin of this sense of dread toward the ocean is something I can’t fully explain because it was once non-existent. I enjoyed my time when I played in the ocean as a child. I used to study ocean animals with fervor (ask my family about the 4^th grade month-long focus on whales, oi vey). I never have been caught in a rip-tide. I have had some incidents with animals (eels and marlins), but even when those happened it didn’t stop me in the moment. Yet, I distinctly remember in my university years not wanting to go out on the Ocean Beach Pier in San Diego because it extended a quarter mile out into the water where the likelihood of danger grew with each step. The fear presented itself and grew from there.

Recently, I was at the Titanic Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In the year and a half it had been open, I wasn’t too keen to go to the museum. However, I was with a friend, and we had agreed we were doing touristy type things, so to the Titanic we went. It was indeed interesting. Yet, as we moved along chronological layout of the ship’s history, eventually we would approach the demise of the famed ship, where I knew we couldn’t escape without some exposure to the wreckage. This meant underwater. As we entered a theater showing a short documentary, I felt the shift in my mind, setting in the unease. There were the sound effects of sonar pings and the breathing through masks. It had the visuals of animals crawling across the ocean floor and things growing on the boat. Even then cheesy commentary did nothing to help. I was more and more uncomfortable. Only five minutes passed, yet it felt so much more drawn out. Then we went downstairs to a movie screen with frightening creatures. I just passed through the room with little to no slowing and waited for my friend. The situation was just humorous to her.

What I’ve come to realize over much thinking. Is that what scares me most about the deep waters is the unpredictable nature of the environment, compounded with lack of control and loss of senses.

I’ve been fully submerged. It can feel like time is standing still, then everything moves at hyper speed. You can’t hear anything, then sounds are suddenly amplified. You can’t speak or breathe without additional equipment. And known water dwelling species are larger than any other land dwelling animals. There deeper in, the less light there is. All of these things are what scares me.

Going back to my lecture, the second point that he came to was through Genesis 1:2 where it says, “The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.” From here light was introduced, and separation of sky and water, and life came forth. What the lecturer said was that the dark and the deep were still things of God and he thought they were good. Good! The things I fear he says are good!

Out of the dark, he brought us so much more than we could imagine. Over the dark, God hovered. From the beginning, he covered the darkness with His Power, and His Strength, and His Glory. He wasn’t afraid of it! This hit me straight between the eyes. Somewhere I lost the wonder of the ocean’s depths and it was replaced with anxiety and dread. My fascination with the animals was replaced with an unhealthy view that they were too powerful and strong for me. And somewhere along the line I’ve taken a view that my journey in draws me deeper into the unsafe, uncontrollable, dangerous unknown without a protector. The only false part of that is that I do have a protector. My Protector has never stopped hovering and breathing life into me.

Even with the Titantic, they had a protector. The museum portrayed, in brutal honesty, that the captains were warned by many ships moving along only hours ahead of them, moving in the same path, that there were treacherous iceburgs and that they ought to slow down and keep watch. But they moved ahead into the darkness not listening to the voices speaking to them. Oh, they moved unafraid foolishly, and found what rightly describe by the warnings. It was a decision that was destructive to so many.

It's in this message that God has been speaking to me this week, that when I am afraid and unwilling to step into His goodness and allow His breath to fill me, then consequence befall me and others.

It's interesting to me when God wants to communicate, he repeats the message. Just tonight, as I read through the passage of my Bible-In-One-Year app on my phone, they featured the book of Jonah. Talk about dealing with what scares me. Jonah decided one type of darkness (Nineveh) wasn’t good enough and he choose a different way straight into a storm and the stomach of a whale. His choice brought consequences to himself and others on board that ship and delayed the promise of God to the Ninevites. God had an animal large enough to swallow a human and keep him alive—the same ones that make me cringe— as a tool waiting in the deep for his exact purpose.

Maybe you’re like me, though you can step into the ocean with ease, your “things of the deep” are keeping you from what is available to you in God’s power. Perhaps you have different issues like a job situation, a family struggle, emotional distress or any number of things that feel out of your control. From Genesis 1 we know that these things are near to God and he can call them good. It’s time to release the fear and remember God is hovering, ready to bring light into your dark deep places.

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As a side note: 

I can think of at least three people who will read this and will now, even more fervently insist I go swimming in the ocean again. I'm not hopping on a plane to do it, but one day I will. Promise.