Our planet is a remarkable place. It is home to almost eight billion people living on six continents (seven if you count the few hearty souls in Antarctica). In addition to human life, it is populated by all sorts of amazing plants and animals. But most of the life on this planet isn’t visible to us for the simple reason that it’s under water.
Water covers about 70 percent of the planet. On average, the oceans are more than 2 miles deep with the trench areas of the hadal zone stretching to depths anywhere from 3 ½ miles to almost 7 miles. You could drop Mt. Everest (the highest point on earth) into the Challenger Deep (the deepest part of the Mariana Trench) and when it had settled on the ocean floor it would be covered by more than a mile of water. And while lots of people have been to the top of Everest, just two people have been to the deepest part of the earth.
It’s my impression that it’s much the same way when it comes to understanding what God is doing for us through Jesus—there’s a lot that’s under water for many disciples. There are rich, deep reservoirs of truth off the coast that are largely untouched because our preference is for those that are land-based—the ones that are in our songs, prayers and conversations. As a result, the truths in the aquatic regions remain under-explored and underdeveloped. Then too, there some who are happy to approach Jesus like many do technology—they want to know only what they need to in order to receive the “benefits” and nothing more. They know Jesus died for their sins so they can go to heaven and they’re satisfied with that.
My four-year-old grandson and I were at a fast food place where he was totally absorbed with the ice cream that came at the conclusion of his meal. That led to a mostly one sided conversation on the glories of ice cream as I started naming off some of its ingredients. He suddenly stopped eating, lifted up his head and asked, “UA (my grandfather name), people make ice cream?” (I suppose in his four-year-old mind he had imagined it grew on trees or came from hearty, cold cows in Antarctica). “Absolutely,” I told him. Then came the moment of truth as he looked into my eyes and asked in a voice indicating that he was on the verge of making an important personal application of a universal truth, “UA, do you know how to make ice cream?” I assured him I did and that we would make some when we all were at the lake in a few weeks. I’m pretty sure this new information is functioning as his current model for heaven—heaven is where you never run out of ice cream because you can make it!
Wouldn’t it be great if we were as excited about learning as children are? I know we’re not all wired the same way, but we are all to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). We’re not all called to be theologians or even teachers, but we have been blessed with the Scripture and we can in our own way explore those areas off the coast.
The deeper we go the more life we’ll find!
A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green 