In the deep ocean, whales are majestic and fascinating. Their size is an overwhelming presence of a graceful yet bold domination. There is such peace among them in the waters and they seem to be one of the most beautiful creatures of the sea.
There’s but one point at which all such beauty begins to fade-it’s when these sea mammals get washed ashore.
Whales being washed ashore to their death are a periodic occurrence all over the globe. A beached whale spells the end of its own glory. Usually, no amount of might from those huge fins is able to strike itself back into the deep. The formula applies: No appendage, no salvation.
The next picture is usually ugly. Sometimes their end comes quick as they are at the mercy of the blades of the coastal dwellers. If they are not spotted and feasted upon or if they are not salvaged by a more conscious community, they are then left to rot under the sun. Discovery Channel once featured an episode wherein humungous whales have dirtied the atmosphere with a foul smell of their rotting carcasses on the beach. The solution was to bomb each whale to chunky pieces to the delight of the sea birds and curious cats nearby.
Those whales, despite its magnificence in the deep, are deemed useless and inefficient in the land. This is what got me thinking. All of that awesomeness is reduced to nothingness.
There is a whole lot of truth that we can learn from this. One obvious thing is for us to realize our place. As much as whales were never designed to operate out of the water, we were never fashioned by God to operate outside of His presence.
Each one of us has a constant nudge that says that we are made for more. We know it when we look at how God would begin to describe us. We know that we are a people that are full of potential and God has given each of us a spirit not of timidity but a spirit of power. This is our makeup. We are magnificent for as long as we stay in the waters of God’s presence.
All of these potentials to shoot us up are not meant to be used outside of the presence of God. We may be rich and famous, highly intelligent and skillful, but amidst everything we may feel unfulfilled and not to mention, dried up simply because our deepest core illustrates that we are supposed to live within the boundaries of the presence of God. We are vulnerable outside of the waters of His presence because that is where the blade wielding demons lurk to destroy us. Sadly, a lot of people choose to try their fins on the beach. It simply does not work. Your size (potentials, skills, intelligence, wealth, looks) for that matter will not dictate your capacity and ability to maneuver on land.
If you feel like you are juiced up and is about to rot, God wants to bring you back to where you belong. In His presence, you can be who you are and you can function as you are. God’s grace is vast and deep, His presence is like the waters of the deep that embraces our whole being and allows us to determine our ways.
You must be wondering what causes whales to get beached. It’s not always a tsunami mind you. One of the fascinating animal behaviors that have been observed is the capacity of these mammals to do their hara-kiri. Beached whales are sometimes the suicidal ones. Sometimes, when they are faced with a threat, when the waters disrupt their system or when they are badly wounded in the deep, they would take matters to their own hands or say fins and come out to look for the nearest shore and beach themselves to their death.
In the presence of God, we should never think that things will fall right in place for us. We may get bruises and occasional wounds, pain and fear can be present, problems and worries may arise but that does not warrant us to arrogantly think that we have God figured out already. We haven’t been to all the deeps. And sometimes these things will come to allow us to dip in a deeper deep. There is a vast ocean for us to discover. If something may happen to us in the water maybe we are being taught of our place in the ocean. It is a sad reality that a lot of people opt to take it to the beach. It is utter rebellion and there is no security in it. Most people who beach themselves have a false sense of navigation. As they navigate through life, they think the ocean exists for them. No. We exist for the vast ocean of the presence of God. In the first place, everything has never been about us.
God’s presence is irresistibly inviting. The presence I’m talking about is not another religion. Religion is too superficial and it’s created by the beach buddies for the beach buddies. God wants to invite you to try the deep.
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