Water Water Everywhere

The swimming pool at Kansas Bible Camp provides a crucial, refreshing service to hundreds of giggling/ screaming/ shouting campers every summer. Because it remains coatless throughout the winter, rain water, leaves, frogs and miscellaneous debris combine forces to create murky water in its depths. The concoction is semi-lethal to the swimming pool filter, and so the water from the pool is removed via human muscle and five gallon buckets. I participated in this annual pool-cleaning event last weekend.
There are three aspects to the KBC water displacement process: there is the Scooper, who fills the bucket with water then hoists it up as far as they can to the ledge of the pool, then there is the Watchman, who hoists the bucket out of the pool, and finally, there is the Pourer who pours out the bucket once it reaches ground level. It did not take umpteen buckets of water for me to realize that I was (am) a weak individual, and this activity also helped me remember I had certain muscles that I had forgotten about. After two hours of this service, I was reduced to a haggard Pourer. And finally, towards the tail end of the activity, an individual crouched down by the side of the pool, handing down shaky empty buckets to those below.
This experience made me grateful I’m not a sailor, especially an old time sailor on a sinking ship. It is one thing to be doing this kind of work to the sound of cheerful voices singing catchy songs from Newsies, but to do this while fearing that my sailing vessel was going to plummet into the depths of Davey Jones… WHEW! That would be sobering. As a crew of approximately twenty-five people we displaced several feet of water from that swimming pool, but to have the whole ocean trying to get into the bowels of a ship through some broken boards would be disparaging, to say the least. The salt water would lash against your skin, stinging cuts and open wounds, and find its way into your eyes, mouth and ears. UGHTH! The battering from the ocean would knock even the most experienced sailor off their feet. The raw power of the ocean is startling; who can fight it?
If we tried displacing the ocean’s water in its entirety, it would be a stupid venture. No matter what we would use, it would be more foolhardy than attempting to empty the KBC pool with a handful of sewing thimbles.
Today I was reminded that God’s love is like an ocean. It is vast… it is powerful… and wow... that’s a lotta love!