Cause Sometimes Fish Can Be Lost At Sea...

  So lately I’ve been feeling a bit like a fish lost at sea.  I know that sounds funny.  Fish they belong in water, so how can they be lost at sea?!  But….haven’t you ever seen the movie “Finding Nemo”?!?!  I remember when that movie first came out …..All my friends would tell me, “Jess, you’re so Dory”! And I get it, I’m forgetful, friendly, and at times a bit too hyperactive….but….I always related more to Marlin.  Marlin is Nemo’s dad and in the movie, out of his great love for his son, he casts off all fear to brave the big bad sea in order to find him!

  You see, in a lot of ways, my faith has always worked within the realm of this comfort zone where I follow all these rules and regulations and try to do all the right things so that I can go to heaven.  I know that sounds so restricting to some people, but I get this kind of religion….I get rules….I get the black and whiteness of “do this and don’t do this”….I find comfort in that.  Yet over the past few years God has continually been calling me out of that and into a RELATIONSHIP with him.

  And I know that sounds so cliché…people say all the time now that’s “it’s not religion, it’s a relationship”…. but for me it really is.  I want to know God, to really KNOW Him and not just ABOUT Him.  And I find that on this journey to do just that, I seem to be drifting, or maybe swimming, further and further away from the comforts of legalism and right into an ocean of grace.

   The thing is…….it’s kind of scary and definitely NOT comfortable for me.....this swimming against the current….facing questions and situations I’ve never dealt with before. I find myself wrestling with scripture… and church… and community… and life… and how they all overlap….and I cry out to God cause I just can’t seem to make sense of it all on my own…..and ….It almost seems easier sometimes to head back to the cove .  But I can’t!... because much like Marlin, it’s love that constrains me to “Just keep swimming” and in spite of my fear, seek to find God.

  So...as I said, at times, like now.... I find myself lost at sea…..trusting that this is where I’m supposed to be…that this is a journey I am suppose to take….and  that in the end I’ll find the desire of my heart.