There are some things about the Christian faith that one doesn’t quite understand until after you have gone through it.  I often look at this from both ends of the spectrum.  There are those who are fresh out of seminary or some other education who think they have all the answers though they haven’t lived them yet.  Ideology in their heads, they have answers, but not the seasoning on top of them that make them taste good to others.  You see young people in this spot and hope beyond hope that they don’t become disillusioned or fall away when the day comes that their faith might be tested.  

There are others, who stand as seasoned warriors, men and women who have been beaten, badgered, and bloodied, standing like wounded troops limping from battle, yet still proclaiming the cross of Christ.  I know a few pastors like this, that have earned credibility to what they say because their life proves it.  These people, having walked through the furnace of fire itself, not only know scripture, but have passed through the crucible of it, their own existence revealing testimony to the Bible’s authenticity.

            I am somewhere in between.

            Have I seen battles in the wartime of the spirit?  Yes.  Do I know beyond a shadow of doubt that scripture is true because I have lived and breathed its power?  Most certainly.  Do I know everything there is to be learned of the height, width, and depth of Christ’s love and living Word?  No.  I’m no expert.  I’m just one that has lived through the battle and has enough stories to pass on to others.  I’ve got plenty of battle tales, but I have much to still learn.

            I am extremely excited to reveal that I have a new book in the making. Titled Wonders In the Deep, it is a fiction read that entails just one of the “living passages” of scripture that I have seen in my journey.  I want to share a bit about it today with you, to whet your appetite for it, and begin the process of getting it out, hopefully being published around the early part of 2021.

            To those of you that know me well, you know I have a fascination with the open ocean.  I have a fond liking to the sea, the coast, sailing, and maritime ways.  I have had this love for quite some time.  My affinity to the sound of the rolling waves, the hues and colors of the coastline during the golden hour, the selecting of which seashells to bring home from a trip, and the instant relief I crave when I finally hear the engine shut off and the first gulp of air a raised sail is filled with- these things touch a place inside me that no other natural elements of God’s creation does.  I simply love sailing.  To me, it is a freedom expressed no other place.

            I wish I could be at the coast more often.  Being a Pennsylvania boy, it takes effort to get there.  Maybe someday I will live closer to the ocean that calls me. I believe that God allows my affection to be strong because so many aspects of it attribute directly back to the Lord himself.  I can understand God deeper when I’m at the edge of the ocean.  Can you hear the roar of the waves crashing upon the rocks or pounding the life out of the sand in rhythmic fashion?  Ezekiel 43:1-2 tells of God’s power coming near.  “Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing east. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory.”

            I often get reminded just how powerful God is when I stand on the shore. The ocean, in all of its glory, is something beyond anything that man can control.  We have zero ability to change the tides, the patterns of it, or the way it travels across the earth.  Something so profound, it simply amazes me that God has the power to do the unthinkable, even to summon the waves and the course they are allowed to take, and govern them with boundries.  Job 38:8-11 leaves me with incomprehensible awe, as God does just that.  

“Or who shut in the sea with doors

when it burst out from the womb,

when I made clouds its garment

and thick darkness its swaddling band,

and prescribed limits for it

and set bars and doors,

and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,

and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?

            Perhaps there is no greater demonstration of earth’s natural power than during a storm at sea.  I describe this in dramatic detail, as in the early pages of my new novel.  Alan Lawrence, the book's main character, is trapped in a vicious storm in which he is at its mercy to make it back to shore.  For anyone who has lived through an ocean storm, it can be very scary, as the raw power of nature is totally unpredictable.  Still, God shows just how incredible he is by holding all these things in his own hand. Mark 4:36-39 shows us a small portion of the power of God.  “And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”

            Though one might stand in complete awe when thinking about all these things, there is one mystery that baffles me even more.  The love that a perfect God has for sinful man has got to be the greatest mystery of all time.  Romans 5:7-8 is the most unexplained, profound, and incomprehensible portion of scripture for me, a sinner, someone who does not deserve God’s love of forgiveness in the least.  That, in a nutshell, is one of the messages that I hope people walk away with when reading this new book.  I hope that people see just how undeserved grace is, and how quickly we should be to grab hold of it and hang on to all the grace God provides us.  I want people to understand just one part of scripture that God revealed to me in an intense way.

            Yes, Wonders In the Deep is a novel about what God has taught me in life from his Word.  I will leave you with a taste of what the whole novel is centered around, something that I wish to be able to scream to others from the highest mountain.  I hope God takes this new novel and blasts it around the world endless times.  Though my life has been hard at times, I’ve learned incredible things from passing through the crucible of Scripture.  Wonders In the Deep is a personal testimony to one particular passage.  In closing, I will end with this passage, one the whole book stands on, and one that when you see me as a wounded warrior standing on a hill still waiving God’s flag and proclaiming that God’s voice is still winning. . . you will know that I’m not just someone sharing a verse that doesn’t have the experience to back it up.  I’ve lived it.

            And that, is the hope I wish to pass on to others.

Psalm 107:23-24

They that go down to the sea in ships,

that do business in great waters;

These see the works of the Lord,

and his wonders in the deep.

By Chuck Carr