Launch Out

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. (Jeremiah 17:7)

​The mercy of God is an ocean divine,
A boundless and fathomless flood;
Launch out in the deep, cut away the shoreline,
And be lost in the fullness of God.*

In 1978, as a non-Christian, I was invited along to a church where many in the congregation had deeply committed their lives to Jesus Christ. They had ‘cut away the shoreline’. They didn’t sit for hours watching TV as I did. They didn’t drink alcohol, as I did. They didn’t spend evenings ‘out on the town’, as I did! In-fact, they hardly did anything that I did! They had ‘cut away the shoreline’ and were following Jesus.

I felt my own life being challenged but it wasn’t a challenge I wanted to accept at first. I wanted to be a Christian, just not one that was ‘lost in the fulness of God’. I pictured myself on a beach, the ocean stretching out in front of me to the distant horizon. These Christians were swimming, way far out. I intended to venture in as far as my knees; that was as far as I would go. I thank God that He had other plans for me!

Like many others, my life for those few months could have been summed up in these words;

‘But many, alas! only stand on the shore,
And gaze on the ocean so wide;
They never have ventured its depths to explore,
Or to launch on the fathomless tide.’*

Maybe some reading this can identify with these feelings. Maybe you too are reluctant to ‘launch out, into the deep’ and ‘let the shoreline go’. Let me encourage you to think again and reconsider your life’s call.

Jeanne Guyon writes, ‘Be courageous. It is hard work to launch a large ship from her moorings, but when she is out in the open waters how easily she sails! When the self-nature has been conquered through perseverance, you will know great joy. You shall find yourself in the abundant waters of grace!

Friend, can I entice you to venture beyond the depth of your current experience with the Lord Jesus Christ? If you do, I can assure you, you won’t be disappointed.

‘Oh, let us launch out on this ocean so broad,
Where floods of salvation o’erflow;
Oh, let us be lost in the mercy of God,
Till the depths of His fullness we know.’*

Pauline Anderson

*Launch Out- A B Simpson