As I was driving home from southern California last week, I enjoyed the view of the Pacific Ocean for several miles. In the aftermath of the recent storm, the water took on an ominous dark blue color, nearly indigo against the bright morning sky. The inkiness stretched out against the horizon, as far as the eye could see.

I considered how the ocean reflected in several aspects the God who made it: deep, boundless, powerful, unfathomable, both reassuring and fearsome, at once familiar and yet in many ways inscrutable. As well and as thoroughly as man has explored the ocean, we have touched only a fraction of its depths. Though it surrounds us, and we depend upon it for life, to a great degree it remains a mystery to us.

I believe there’s good reason why God has repeatedly, from the beginning of time, demonstrated His supremacy over all things by exerting His power over the sea. If God can marshal that which covers three-fourths of the surface of our world, then we can appreciate the fact that no power is beyond His ability to master.

On a dark and rainy day, as we saw yesterday, the cloudy sky mirrors that forbidding ocean I drove past the other day. It’s awe-inspiring to envision the might of the God who separated the water in the sky from the water in the sea (Genesis 1:6-10) and the Word who holds them apart even now (Colossians 1:17). Surveying the grim firmament overhead offers a sobering warning to respect Him who rules it.

Long ago, the sweet singer of Israel pondered the question, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:3-4). To the sober-minded man, it seems almost incredible that a God so great should care anything for a creature so small. Yet the wonder is not that God merely regards us, but that while we were still sinners, He sent His only precious Son to lay down His life for us (Romans 5:8).

Think about that — a God who can divide sea and sky cares enough for you and me to accomplish the ultimate sacrifice for us. A God in comparison with whom we are like flyspecks on the face of the sun sees so much value in us that He would pay the most terrible price to reconcile us to Himself — through the body of His Son, nailed to a cross (Ephesians 2:16; Colossians 1:20).

God’s ways are deeper than any ocean and broader than any sky (Isaiah 55:8-9; Psalm 92:5), and certainly beyond our comprehension by human device. Despite this, He has concealed His mind from those who think themselves wise, and has revealed them through His written word to those who will humble themselves like babes (Matthew 11:25).

This past week, as I presented five lessons from God’s word to the saints at Port Hueneme, I was reminded yet again that no matter how much I examine God’s word, there seems always to me so much more about it that I do not yet know. God has through His word revealed Himself to us as completely as we are capable of grasping (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:3), but at the end of our study we must frankly acknowledge that just when we think we have learned all He has to teach us, what we have truly learned is how very little we know.