THREE WORDS ON “TASTING THE OCEAN”: not about seafood

By Andrea Guachalla

If your first thought on the name went right into “eating seafood”, I’m sorry to disappoint you!
No seafood on this webpage.

At the very beginning of this project, several options for a name came to my mind. All of them had an interesting ring to them, but “Tasting The Ocean” just felt right. It felt like it revealed something I was only starting to understand.

Later on, digging in the “it felt right” I found that those three words answer to three important questions that I, after years of writing, was asking myself for the first time: Why? What? and How?

Why do I write?

Well… Because I read.

As a teenager I used to read A LOT. I was the kind of nerd that would stay in the classroom during recess while everyone else was eating or playing around, just to get some precious one on one time with whichever book I was reading.

For some reason, fiction books about sailing in the open sea, travelling around the pacific ocean and discovering the world kept coming to my hands. Reading them felt as if I was discovering a new universe, because all those years I was living in a landlocked country (Bolivia), meaning I had never actually seen the sea. Reading was like tasting the mysterious ocean that could only be unveiled by books to me. That’s what made them so attractive. 

As I grew older I started wondering if I could also take a pen and paper and unveil mysteries through writing.

What does writing mean to me?

I’ll introduce the answer with a few questions if I may: Isn’t it nice that by reading you get a grasp of something you don’t fully understand? A glimpse of something you haven’t seen? A sense of something you haven’t experienced? A view of a world only real in someone else’s mind? 

It’s wonderful and crazy at the same time!

Could there be something crazier than that?

Writing is.

By writing you get to understand in your heart, see clearly in your mind, experience in your soul, and give others a glimpse of the world that might be only real in your mind, you’re enabled to create unlimitedly with black ink and white paper. And still, even with the best writing skills, you could have, you can only offer a glimpse. Because writing is like tasting the infinite ocean as a finite being. 

That brings me to… 

How does my mind perceive God’s greatness?

Truth is… My mind is nothing but imprecise in this regard. I understand that God created us to his image and for his glory, and that man preferred to rebel and sin against the creator of all things, disobeying his commandments. I understand how that separated us from God, and that sinning against an eternal and holy being makes us recipients of the worst punishment: eternal death under the holy wrath of God.

And even though, this sounds so terrible and condemning, it should only make us more grateful towards him, for he lovingly and compassionately offered life and reconciliation with Him through Jesus, his own son. Who was sent to the earth to live a perfect life, be crucified at the hands of his enemies and be resurrected for this supreme purpose: pay for the punishment of those who believe in him, so they can be reconciled with God:

“But to all that did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

John 1:13, English Standard Version

That’s the same Jesus that once said:

...“I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him”.

John 14:6-7, English Standard Version

I understand that knowing Jesus, is knowing God the Father, and that He himself enables us to fulfill his commandments moved by love and thankfulness: 

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. […] [And] you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Matthew 22:37, 39, English Standard Version

This is all I need to know to repent from my way of doing things, believe that Christ, the Son of God, paid for my punishment, and be eager to follow him.

However… Isn’t it mysterious that I might try to know God’s character and perfect plans, I might read the Bible dozens of times, I might listen to Bible scholars or become one and still wouldn’t be able to fully understand the perfectly loving and holy character of God, the complexity of his will and absolute sovereignty? Because… “the love of Christ surpasses knowledge.” (Ephesians 3:19). And even if humanity would study His Word for unending ages, it wouldn’t reach it’s deepest depth.

It would be like tasting the ocean.

It might taste one way or another in different places, and the surroundings and weather might influence the taste you would get in your mouth. You might conclude at first that you like its saltiness and its blueness. You might decide to explore it a couple of hours, or a couple of years, and every time you would discover something new.

Every time you would conclude that you don’t fully understand it’s greatness, it’s powerness, it’s depth, it’s mysteries, and the complexity and wonderfulness of the life it holds, the same way we are not able to fully understand how great God is, how almighty, how deep in wisdom and love and justice and grace and mercy, how mysterious and inscrutable to our human minds, and how complex and wonderful his creation is. 

Just like David wrote ages ago in the Psalms:

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, I cannot attain it.”

Psalms 139:6, English Standard Version

Or like the apostle Paul wrote in his Letter to the Romans two thousand years ago:

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

Romans 11:33, 36, English Standard Version

And yet, by his grace we are enabled to know what he reveals to us in His Word:

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

Deuteronomy 29:29, English Standard Version

How great is God!

The same way I stared speechless at the ocean when I first saw it, trying to reconcile what I had read with what I was seeing, I also stare speechless at God’s word every time that I, by His Grace, get to understand something new about him.

Because He is so great, and I am so unlike him, so small, so human.

So… Why “Tasting the Ocean”?

Because tasting the ocean is like reading,

like writing,

like trying to understand God’s infinitude as a finite imperfect being…

There you go, my friend. And if at this point you’re still confused about not having seafood here… Well… 

I warned you. Didn’t I?