Out to Sea

THIS WEEK my great-grandmother turned ninety-two. She came to town for her birthday, and we celebrated on the fourth of July with fireworks and watermelon. It was a blessing and an inspiration to talk to her, and to be in one room with family stretching from one year old to ninety-two. God has really blessed my family.

Granny hadn't seen most of us in a while, and she seemed to really enjoy how big all the children are getting. My brother is so much taller and thinner and musclier than he was last time she saw him. Molly is walking and talking and swimming. And she couldn't believe it when I told her I am about to turn nineteen.

It was so good to just sit and talk to her about life and school and people. I will never forget what she told me: "Nothing happens without God." He has really blessed my family. And there's something so powerful about hearing those words from somebody with so many years. I hear many people my age confidently claiming God has nothing to do with anything, or that He isn't good, or that He isn't even real. But Granny is ninety-two. She's seen good things and terrible things, life and death, sickness and health. She knows what this world is like, and she concludes that nothing happens without God. I'm eighteen, and I know that. But when somebody so old knows it, the young should sit up and listen, and look around to see what He is doing now.

God is very, very good. He has made us for a very specific kind of supernatural joy. We are made for His glory and to worship Him. Everybody worships, but when we come to the point where we are worshiping the only One who deserves our worship, our souls fall into place and we find joy. When He is our only God, and when worship is the way we live, and when praise is the same as breathing, we have the greatest joy because it's what we are made for.

King David was able to see that nothing happens without God, and he got his joy from worshiping Him. He made a fool of himself jumping around and singing to God when the ark of the covenant entered Jerusalem. He understood that God was the strength of Israel. The ark, the dwelling place of His presence on earth for Israel, was coming. I can't imagine how excited he must have been. He worshiped so hard that one of his wives scolded him.

2 Samuel 6:16 "Now as the ark of the Lord came into the City of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart."

She thought a king should be more dignified than that, especially while the young women of his house were watching. Well, David wasn't his own king.

v. 22 "And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor."

Worship is perfected by people who believe that nothing happens without God, and that anything is possible with Him. People who seek to humble themselves before Him in order to draw near to Him. Sometimes worship is undignified and silly, but it's not about us.

Yesterday I was walking on the beach with my family, and God added to a lesson he taught me a few months ago. At a retreat, He told me that His love is like an ocean that goes on forever, so we have no lack of love. Now as I got my feet wet and looked for shells, He told me that seeking Him is like swimming out to sea. I often find myself focused on smaller things, looking for shells, good things that come from God but they aren't God. He wasn't speaking literally, but He told me to swim out far and recklessly, into His love. Not to be afraid to experience the vastness of His love, because He will keep me afloat. To be submerged in Him instead of fixating on swirly shells like the ones I collected and put in my purse.

It's when life is lived for God's glory and by trusting Him that we find out what's possible with Him. Suddenly wonderful things are within reach. We find our faith to be well-placed. It's when worship is our life, a silly and exuberant dance of praise, a swim out to the heart of the sea, that we can clearly see that nothing happens without Him.