Long for the Endless Immensity of the Sea

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a French writer, said, “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood, and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”


I was so struck by this exhortation this morning that I caught myself pausing and just thanking God for such a picture.


In our fight against sin, particularly habitual sin, we often find ourselves turning to legalistic means to rid ourselves of it:  stop it, move to another room, call a friend, read the Bible.  And all of these things are good things.  But over and above just removing things from our lives, the greater need is to replace them with better things (Eph. 4:22-24).


How do you remove darkness from a room?  You turn on a light.  In the same way, how do you remove the darkness of sin from your heart?  You run to the Light - Jesus Christ.  It's only as we catch the grand vision of God, the immensity of His mercy and grace, and His willingness to send His Son to die for our sins that we really begin the process of change.  As His light shines into our hearts we find that it is so much more beautiful than the ugliness of our darkness.  Like sunshine at the end of a dreary day, we rejoice when we can bask in the light of God's provision.


My hope and prayer today is that I "long for the endless immensity of the sea" - of God - and in so doing my sin looks so much less appealing.  May God's grace enable us as we pursue His greatness!