One of my biggest fears is drowning. When I was 7 or 8 I was swimming at a public pool and decided to go down the water slide. I was barely tall enough to go down the slide and I had just recently gotten the hang of swimming, but wanted to go anyways. I went down and as I slid out into the pool, someone else came right behind me and landed on top of me while I was still underwater. It seemed like forever until they realized that they were stepping on me but finally I was able to get up and inhale air instead of pool water.
Around that time (possibly even the same day), my sister Chelsey and I were swimming in a wave pool. Chelsey fell off her tube in the midst of these gigantic waves and was unable to resurface. The lifeguards evidently weren't paying attention, but eventually a random stranger brought her back to safety. Pretty sure drowning is one of Chelsey's biggest fears as well... Maybe you can relate.
Many of you know the song, "How He Loves" by John Mark McMillan. In the bridge of that song he says, "if His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking..." Another less well-known song called "Washed Away" by Aaron Gillespie says, "Let Your waters rise 'till we're drowning here in You, capsize us in the tide of Your grace..."
This idea of drowning in grace puzzles me a little bit. I know that grace is wonderful, so why is it being tied to drowning - many peoples' biggest fear?
Now, I can't really speak to the song writers' original intentions for writing those lyrics, but I do know what they mean to me. To me, the idea of drowning makes me super uncomfortable. Even seeing someone submerged in water on TV makes me feel desperate for air. The LORD has brought me to the conclusion that grace makes me feel similarly. The idea of this never-ending, never-changing, never failing and never-deserved, never-earned, never-compensated grace leaves me breathless and desperate.
In Mark 5 lies a familiar bible story of a demon-possessed man named Legion. The bible says in verse 4 of that chapter that the demons had such a strong hold on Legion that "no one was strong enough to subdue him." But right as he saw Jesus, he fell at His feet and Jesus was able to cast the demons into a herd of pigs, who then proceeded to jump off a cliff and drown in a lake.
You would think that when people saw this take place, they would be amazed and excited about Jesus' power to "subdue" the legion of demons that had held this man captive for so many years, but what is their reaction, instead? Verse 17 says, "Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region."
Wait, what?
I think these people were so scared because Jesus was able to do what they couldn't... They tried with all their might to rid Legion of his demons and when that failed, they tried with all their might to bind him with chains so that he wouldn't hurt anyone, but even that was a failure. When Chelsey was drowning in that wave pool years ago, she tried with all her might to save herself, but ultimately there was nothing she could do but wait for that random stranger to get her out of the water. When we were bound by the chains of sin, we tried with all our might to rid ourselves of the burden that came with it. All Jesus had to do was show up with His grace and just like that, we were free.
Drowning is scary because we know that in that situation there's nothing we can do to save ourselves. It's the same with grace. There's nothing we did to deserve it and there's nothing we can ever to do earn it - it can only be given by Jesus. As uncomfortable as that may make us feel, we are so much better off because of it.
So, let's embrace the uncomfortable. Let's drown in this grace. Because in this case, drowning is the only way to life.
