A very wise person once told me in a time of doubt that if I wanted to see God, all I needed to do was look around me.

I had heard this before, of course, and I had already preached the line to others as well. But sometimes, you forget to actually believe the things you say you do, and that was me at that moment. Broken, despairing, and unsure of everything about my faith, I didn't know where God was and where I stood with Him. This being one of my lower moments, I certainly didn't feel deserving of that "child of God" moniker I used to describe myself; I wasn't even sure how well I knew God at that point.

I sit here typing this just yards away from the crystal clear and peaceful Gulf Coast almost a year and a half after my doubts threatened to overwhelm me and my façade began to rapidly crumble. Out here, I finally feel a bit more like the water looks, and it's because I picked up the work I started to do last January and throughout the spring and summer of 2017 — wrestling with my doubt.

Sitting on the back porch of this Destin condo looking out at the sea while journaling what amounted to be a letter to God, I pondered the counsel that wise individual gave me a year and a half ago.

"Look around."

What I'm Looking At

The ocean is something special. On a clear, sunny day, you can gaze out over its massive expanse for miles and miles, as far as your eyesight permits. And where your eyesight finally fails you, the sea seems to conjoin with the heavens, creating this brilliant effect that you're encapsulated in translucent blue.

It is as if it goes on forever, and I can't help but realize whilst pondering its enormity that I am tiny. Indeed, we all are relatively minuscule compared to the waters, and endlessly more so when compared to the universe that appears to exist beyond it. It overwhelms me, just as the thought of God overwhelms me.

I cannot comprehend God much in the same way that I cannot comprehend this wavy, watery behemoth. I know that it's wet and I know that it appears blue, but there is, well, an ocean of things I don't understand about it. Likewise, I have read the Bible, studied it, prayed and listened for God, and yet He is still a mystery to me.

I already knew of my severely limited understanding of God, though. What I learned, sitting on the porch and looking around as I was once told to do, was that I really do need Him.

I've said those words a thousand times, sung them, wrote them, thought them, built Bible studies around them, leaned into them, and lived them at times, but I finally am trying to be resigned to their truth. As I wrote that prayer, and thus wrote out my doubts, I could see God defeating my stubborn fear.

My Personal Ocean

The truth of the matter is that I'm scared to be alone. That fear has been the enduring thread throughout a great deal of my life, and it was that fear which was screaming in the ear of my depression years ago, and again (though differently) a year and a half ago. Relationships, friendships, and conversations — they often served as a sort of sustenance to remind me that I am worthwhile.

I spent a lot of my life feeling like I was on the outside looking in when it came to my peers. I didn't have close friends growing up, and to a kid in middle and high school, that can feel like being a fish alone in the sea. Accordingly, I spent a lot of time trying to feed my appetite for affection and once I started to find those willing to give it, I found that a little bit seemed to only whet my appetite.

My insecurities almost drove me to end my life back in 2014. As I began to recover from that, I found that I could still lean on the God I had spoken about, who was also the God I was still bitter with for not meeting with me the way He seemed to meet with some of my friends. He started to show me that I didn't need affection from others to thrive — that instead I could lean on Him, and to a degree, I did. But I kept trying to appease my insecurities privately, looking for more of the affection I felt I had been missing, and I didn't face that bitterness I held towards God. Even when I found wonderful people who made the world seem brighter, it still felt as though something was missing.

As I look around the beach and watch people having fun — people sharing stories with each other, soaking up the sun, flying kites with their kids — I am convinced of the God that I have already talked about and seen at work, but in whom I might not have been fully convicted.

We all exist and we all want to keep existing. We do what it takes, just as Darwin reasoned, to prolong our species. But despite our smallness in this big universe, we also seem to have this inexplicable yearning for a purpose, for something that makes us more than just animals, something to strive for besides simply staying alive.

Wading By The Shore

I thought my purpose was to love and be loved, and I must say that I was right — I just picked the wrong place to focus. I know and have known some truly amazing people that I have been lucky to call friends, but people by their very nature, have limitations. God, by His very nature, is limitless.

I know next to nothing about Him and I'll probably never do more than wade in that ocean of knowledge so long as I live. But I know that in every hour, every moment, He is here for me in a way that no one else is physically capable, and my stubborn self is starting to accept that as all I need to know.

I don't get why He decided to forgive me, why Jesus died and faced separation from God so that He would welcome me. I am flawed, I have made mistakes, I have hurt people, and yet He chose me anyway.

Sitting here by the ocean, this mind-numbing expanse of crystal blue crafted by the very hands of God, I am again allowing myself to surrender to Him and I can feel the weight lifting off my shoulders.

"You call me out upon the waters/the great unknown/where feet may fail.
And there I find you in the mystery/in oceans deep/my faith will stand."
- Hillsong United, "Oceans"