Have you seen the Pacific Ocean?
I ask this as a serious question to my reader.
I ask because, in Northern California for instance, the Pacific’s deep blue churnings are a sight to see. The waters carry thundering tumultuous energy that you can feel in your body. The currents carve new contours in the landscape on an hourly basis. Weather patterns follow the tides every inclination, sending fog in and out of the San Francisco Bay, creating the atmospheric conditions that allow for the fertile riches of, say, the Salinas Valley. The overwhelming strength of it all leaves one in stunned silence from an overlook like the one pictured above.
I stood there, at this perch, a few summers ago and was reminded of the ways in which the Scriptures teach that the world is charged with meaning and that every single thing that you lay your eyes upon is a sign beckoning us to look beyond it to the maker of heaven and earth.
If this is true then the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean are actually whispering something profound if you strain your ear to listen. The sea can speak and here’s what those waves called to me that summer afternoon, and what they have continued to whisper when I close my eyes, get quiet, and hear those poundings again, if only in my own soul:
“I bet you can trust him. The one who spoke this sea into existence, and the one who swirls its depths with his finger afresh each day, that one knows who you are, Joel Busby, and he knows what you need.”
What if the whole Pacific Ocean, with all its pomp and power, what if that is all it’s for? To say those words to us? To say those words to you?