Musical Musing: John Mark McMillan “How He Loves Us”

Sunset over the Ocean I wrote this poem a while ago, but as I listen to this song, it comes back again. “If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.”

My God is an Ocean

Deep, expansive, seemingly limitless
Beautiful, amazing, awe-inspiring
Beyond description, beyond understanding
Almost unknowable and like an ocean,
So is my God

Too long have I splashed in the shallows
Played in the safe waves near the shore
Never daring to wander into the depths,
To go where my feet couldn’t carry me back
To trust my God

I dared not explore where I couldn’t return
Where water wings wouldn’t hold me aloft
And the dollar store ducky ring wasn’t enough
Leave me to build sand castles instead
To never know my God

I feared the undertow, the rapid river’s rush
So I refused to seek the headwaters of faith
And I shied away from surfing the waves
Or seeking the depths of His wonders
Of my God

There, wrapped in what I thought was safety
Dry, warm, secure, and ignorant of the wonder
I was dying, suffocating, like a fish out of water
Needing exactly what I would not seek
The Ocean of my God

Until it seemed I no longer had any choice anymore
And it was dive deeper than I’d ever been in my life
Or watch my life end in a hopeless chase for meaning
I had to trust that, if this is how it ended,
I’d be with my God

But He wouldn’t let me drown, not here,
When I dove deep into the ocean of all God is,
His wonder, His holiness, His justice, His mercy,
His perfection, His grace, His inestimable love
I found my God

So I call you to join me here, brothers and sisters!
Drench yourselves in this Ocean of our God!
Dive into the headwaters, seek out the Source,
Seek out the Deeps, walking in certain faith
In our God

For My God is deeper than the deepest ocean
More unknowable than any sea we’ve found
And until we can’t see the ground beneath us
And the sky above us for the ocean around us
We can’t know our God

Heather Jackson
3 July, 2007 14:53