Grace Like An Ocean

THIS WEEK I went to the annual CRU Women's Retreat. It was a getaway for girls in Daytona Beach, where we stayed at an oceanside hotel and learned about God's love and grace. I just got back a couple hours ago. God did more than I can begin to talk about, because He moved in each of our lives in a singular and special way. I love weekends like this, when a bunch of people that Jesus saved can meet up and eat together, learn and study together, dance, pray, sing, and spend time together. It makes me really grateful for the girls He has put in my life. I started today by going out with them behind the hotel and watching the sun come up over the ocean, and just being in awe over the God who can make things like that. I think it's God's will for the redeemed to gather together and talk about how great it will be in heaven to look back on the things we are saying and doing together now, writing in the sand and looking out over the sea. The theme for the weekend was "Grace like an Ocean." There was a particular focus on idolatry, but we apprached it in a way I never thought about before. We turn to idols because of good desires that we try to satisfy in the wrong ways, and that happens when we don't really believe something about God. It might be His love, His trustworthiness, His goodness, or any other thing about Him that He says is true. The funny thing to me is that not very long ago at all both CRU and my church were covering the topic of idolatry, and I didn't particularly identify much of it in my life. This time I realized something that I wasn't getting right. I knew that God loves each of us overwhelmingly, but I didn't fully grasp that His love is truly boundless. I probably knew it, but it wasn't sinking in. As a result my love for the lost was limited, and the power of the cross wasn't taking on as full a form as it might have in my life. I felt like I needed more love than I had. I had begun to worship a wish. So I went outside and dunked myself in the ocean. I let the swells sweep me off my feet and surround me. God took my eyes off the horizon - a place infinitely far away - and showed me the enormous volume it embraces. If His grace is like an ocean, what sin is not concealed? If His love is like an ocean, what more do I need? This weekend we talked about Isaiah 44, which is about what it looks like to God when we make idols for ourselves. It's like using part of a hunk of wood to warm yourself and cook your food, and part of it as a god you can turn to for deliverance. v. 20 "He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliever himself or say, 'Is there not a lie in my right hand?'" But God wants us to worship only Him so He can bless us. He wants to prove that He is more than enough. v. 22 "I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to Me, for I have redeemed you." Zephaniah 3:17 was also a major verse to us this weekend: "The Lord your God is in your midst, a Mighty One who will save; He will rejoice over your with gladness; He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing." Do you wonder what it sounds like when God sings? What is it like for Him to celebrate from the bottom of His beautiful heart over us, His people? This isn't heaven yet, but we will know someday. He reminded me this weekend that we are our Savior's bride. He saved us because of love. We are His treasure. Our understanding of our sin increases with understanding His holiness. The result should be condemnation, but it's grace instead. The more we recognize the depth of his love, the less we long for it in other places and the more we can love other people. He pours His love into usso that we overflow. But when I think about it, God's love and grace aren't exactly like an ocean. In my head I know that oceans actually do have limits. When I look at the horizon, I know that somewhere out there are the borders of islands and eventually other continents. In the very first chapter of the Bible He separated land from sea. Both have boundaries. But His love and His grace don't, because God is not a limited person in any respect. I was blessed by this weekend, and as I realize the boundlessness of our Lord's love I am already feeling my capacity for love, and my ability to pour it back out, beginning to expand. Wrapped up in the arms of a God who is love, we lack nothing.