Life Aquatic by JesusBranded
Sometimes I temporarily forget why I do JesusBranded- either I get caught up in the art aspect, or I let opinions, both the great and nonsense, gnaw away at me. It gets really difficult to want to continue whenever I lose sight of God, and before I know it I'm working 10x as hard just to somehow earn His favor and approval over this project. Tonight was a great night because I got reminded of Him by Him, and so "Life Aquatic" came to be.
I already had a piece planned for tonight, but for some reason before I started, I decided to deliberately have quiet time in my room for a bit. I turned on an old playlist and just meditated in prayer- and not long after, a conversation began playing itself out in my spirit. I wondered what draws those who don't know Him, to Him; I imagined what sort of apprehension one may find in seeing a Christian's life, and using that as a basis as to whether or not this Christ is worth seeking after in the first place. I remembered an old high school acquaintance of mine, who confided in me that "Christianity may not be for him, because he knows he won't be able to follow all the rules." That's always lingered in me til now, and this new realization came about: What if that's what the way we live our lives communicate to the world? That it's all about the tedium of rules, the sad-stories of our failures, the grandness of our uphill wars? Yes, I understand that it's not meant to be easy, but that's not what's in question at the moment- the thought is simply, when did this freedom that Christ died for cease to turn the world around us upside down? (By the way, I saw someone's Facebook status update earlier that said "let's put the 'amazing' back in grace" or something to that effect)
It's not grace that's at fault, so it's gotta be the steward of the grace that needs to be examined- and this forced on me this question that I can no longer deny: What would it look like if I more closely understood this love of Yours, if I really really understood and was consumed by Your joy over me? What would I look like if I really KNEW this freedom that You speak of? I realized that I can't rest until I find out, because whatever it is I have now is NOT sufficient- the insecurities that hold me back from building bridges, the fears that hold me back from pouring unto others, the bitterness that eats away not only my victories, but the victories of those around me. And this is what desperation began to mean to me: that if such a freedom from our chains that bind exist, then nothing else will do until I experience it deeper and deeper; and hopefully the world around me changes as a result of coming face-to-face with this freedom I begin to live out and pour out to others.
At this point I hadn't realized I was already in tears because the thoughts had happened so quickly- and by coming to, I was just in time to hear out the pre-chorus to Rick Pino's "Your Love Is Like" playing in the background: "Your love is like an ocean, I'm drowning in Your presence... Getting lost in the gaze of your eyes, getting lost in the warmth of your smile..." As I repeated those words over and over, I had already decided to ditch my original plan and go with this new idea. And the coolest part is the connect-the-dots that followed: immediately after that song, JesusCulture's "How He Loves" randomly played next, and I just had to have a laugh because of my favorite verse in that song: "We are His portion, and He is our prize, drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes, if grace is an ocean, we're all sinking" At that point I knew "Life Aquatic" was a go.
So this is my piece to encourage you, wherever you are in your journey, to pursue nothing less than being known by Him, and in turn knowing Him to the point where you're submerged in His grace (what does that mean? I don't know, you figure it out, haha). "For I desire knowledge of God over burnt offerings... The time is coming when I will make a new covenant, I will write my laws in their minds and hearts, and no longer will man teach his neighbor about Me because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest... The whole earth will be brimming with knowing God-alive; a living knowledge of God, ocean-deep, ocean-wide." (Jer 31 NIV / Isa 11 Message) So jump in- and hopefully I'll see ya at the bottom.
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Update (06/30/2011): Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know JesusBranded doesn't exist anymore as a website or in selling t-shirts with their unique designs. But, there is a Facebook group.
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