Oceans.

The grace of God is a vast ocean. Completely absorbing and impossible to contain. It is also completely terrifying. As we stand on the shore trying to behold all of it, all of Gods goodness, we are overwhelmed. But it is a good thing, so easy to enter and yet we skim the shore, dabbling but never entering, dipping toes feeling a glimpse of freedom but thinking that getting in is sure death. To surrender to the ocean is to die. To give in to God is to die to ourselves. We construct our vessels of sin, boats to "protect " us from grace. Our sin separates us from God. These boats we build are elaborate buoys of justification, self-deception, greed, shame, pride, and lust. Some are rowboats and some are barges or yachts. All of us cling to our sin...that very thing that keeps us from receiving the vastness of Gods goodness that is waiting just over the bow. If only we would let go and trust in the salvation that waits for us. We gasp and fear the ocean and we quiver in our boats, not realizing that we have been fish flopping on the decks all along...aching to be released.