Drowning in His sea of love.

Yesterday, praying with my beautiful wife while taking communion, the following picture came to my mind.

It was the picture of a person clinging desperately to a piece of driftwood, trying not to get lost and drown in a vast body of water.

It looked sort of like when Leonardo DeCaprio was clinging to the door or whatever right before he drowned in "The Titanic".

Then Paul's prayer in Ephesians came to my mind: 

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, (Ephesians 3:16-18 NIV)

It was like the person was clinging to the driftwood struggling to not drown in a sea of love. 

The driftwood being guilt and shame.

How often do the lies of guilt and shame keep us from truly experiencing the love of Jesus, the love of our Abba, and the truly transforming love and power of the Holy Spirit? Often, I have begun to realize, I'm so used to listening to guilting, shaming, "you're not good enough," sort of voices, that I confuse the voice of our loving Lord with them... I sometimes mistake te lies for the truth.

To let go of this driftwood, honestly its more like a raft made out of driftwood for me, would feel like letting go of something that has been keeping me afloat... and I'm afraid that I would be lost without it, and that I would drown.

And I think that is exactly what Jesus is inviting me into... drowning in his infinite love. There is no guilt, there is no shame, there is no condemnation, no voices telling me I screwed up again, that I'll never be good enough... there is love, kindness, peace, joy, patience... there will be times that are hard, and as I begin to become more in tune with Jesus I will see things in myself that are not the way they are supposed to be, but, even then, there will be no guilt or shame, just an invitation into truth and wholeness and oneness with my loving Lord.

So I pray that Jesus would help me to let go. That he would help me to see the lies, to see where I am clinging to something dead that is keeping me from true life. I pray that I would see that guilt and shame can be left at the cross, and that I can be swallowed up by true love... by true life in Jesus Christ, my Lord and my Savior. 

Come Lord Jesus, come.

Peace.