I’m a midwestern girl. Born, raised, married and will more than likely grow old and die in the same midwestern state. Once every few years I get a hankering to experience something outside of my normal hills, trees, and humidity. So we hop in our car and drive to the ocean.

The ocean is intimidating to me. I guess it’s the unfamiliarity I have with it. I’ve learned I don’t know what I need to know to really be “safe” in it. Things like a “warning flag for dangerous animals” really does mean something… hello jellyfish stings. Riptides exist and could kill me. I can get farther from the shore than I care to be, quicker than I thought I could, and experience waves bigger than I want to experience in a short time with a boogie board and a 9 year old girl.

So my respect-for/ fear of the ocean is probably healthy for a landlubber like me.

But one thing about the ocean that draws me back to dip my toes in it time after time is it’s immensity. Usually my first few minutes of visiting the ocean is spent standing at the edge with my mouth slightly agape in a smile. “Wow” usually slips from my lips. I stare and focus as far out as I can to see ships that I know are bigger than my house but appear to be the size of a bobber in a pond near where I call home. I think of all the sea animals that are out there, how I’m just one little dot on an enormous map looking out at something that connects me to another small dot(person) standing on their shore miles and miles away who doesn’t look anything like me, talk like me, have customs like me, etc.

I know, I know, I probably analyze things too much. But it’s only for a second, then it’s to the business at hand, wading in the water looking for shells and crabs amongst the waves that crash against my legs and knock me around.

So I read a quote this morning from a book I’m reading about discipleship of women. The quote is, ““If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and assign them tasks and work but rather teach them to long for the immensity of the sea.” – Antoine de Saint- Exupery. It really struck a chord with me. Just like my occasional venture to the ocean is brought on by a desire for adventure, our spiritual lives are spurred on by the desire for something much grander and more splendid than the lives we trudge through on the regular. My lack of excitement in my pursuit of God is often fed by my contentment to stay in the safety of my spiritual “mid western” state. It’s easier at times to stay far inland where the risk of something much bigger than me is far, far away. But God has put in each of us a desire for “the immensity of the sea”. Not only does He want us to stand on the shore of experiencing Him and admire His greatness, He wants us to explore the depths of His oceans of love. This takes leaving behind the comfort of my predictable life and pursuing the direction my adventure guide, the Holy Spirit, leads me. That’s not always comfortable or familiar, but it is oh so very good!

There are times this exploration leaves me a little shook up by the waves knocking against my legs, but if I persist in my exploration of all His goodness I will find treasures that few people experience. It is then, when I explore Him in His greatness that I understand that there is nothing bigger than Him and His love for me. It will take a life time to explore, a lifetime of inexplicable treasures and joy for me as I pursue to understand the “immensity of His sea”.

“Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”

Psalm 8:1-4 NIV

Last night Rich and I watched “Windtalkers”, a movie about the Navajo language being used as code during World War II. Nicholas Cage stars as a marine who was assigned the duty of protecting one of the Navajo Code talkers while in battle on the field. I was struck by a phrase in the movie that Sergeant Joe Enders repeatedly said, “We have to complete the mission.” Even under the most horrendous circumstances this was his goal. He would sacrifice all in order to complete the mission.

Lately life has been challenging in many areas. The thought of “completing the mission” has been far from my mind. It’s been more like, let go of the mission. Take the easier road. Life isn’t supposed to be this hard. You’re making it harder than it was intended to be.

There may be some truth in the whole “you’re making it harder than it was intended to be” thing. But letting go of the mission should never be an option.

Jesus set out the mission for us all in very clear terms. We are to “seek first the kingdom and His righteousness.” Matthew 6:33. And we are supposed to keep doing what He has put into our heart to do. No looking back. That’s “putting your hand to the plow.” Luke 9:62.

There’s a lot said in the Bible about God “renewing our strength”, helping us to”not grow weary”. Galatians 6:9. We are told by Jesus we should “ask, seek, and knock” when we pursue Him. The literal translation goes more along this line: “keep on seeking, keep on knocking, keep on asking”. It’s not a one time deal.

Yesterday I was having a conversation with my 19 year old daughter. She was expressing her frustrations with various things in her life. It was kind of like looking in the mirror at the younger me. I remember feeling like my life was in this holding pattern. Go to work, go to school, go to church, go home. Over and over again. Like the movie “Groundhog’s Day”. Same thing every day. Monotony… I told her at one point in the conversation that she needed to get outside of all her frustrations and focus on the one thing that is really needed, her relationship with God. Then the rest of the stuff will come in time. Easy words to say. Not so easy to do, but that is what “completing the mission” really is.

Paul summed it up pretty well in Philippians: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 3:10-14 NIV

The big goal in life is not “who has the biggest toys”, “who makes a name for themself”, or as Christians , “Who built the biggest ministry”. It’s “accomplishing the mission” it’s “ taking ahold of that for which Christ has taken ahold of me”. And the whole reason Jesus got ahold of me was not for what I could do. It was for who I am to Him, His beloved. It was because He wanted me to “know Him and the power of His resurrection.”

That is the mission. Knowing Jesus and His power that makes all the dead things in my life alive. If I pursue that, everything else will fall into place. Even the things that seem insurmountable at the present time.