Imagine a lovely summer evening and you are standing at the seashore looking across the water at a beautiful sunset as the gentle incoming waves quietly wash up on the sand. What a beautiful sight this can be, with all around you so peaceful.
Perhaps two or three days later you come to the same spot. Now the wind is blowing fiercely, huge waves are thundering against the beach, and the sky is black with threatening clouds. How changeable the ocean can be, you might think and be reminded that our own lives are often changeable also.
But no matter how rough the ocean's surface appears, if you could look down into deep water you would find it calm and undisturbed by the troubles overhead. Perhaps such a contrast should cause us to realize that when troubles are allowed to come our way, we also should find it possible to be calm, by casting all our cares upon the Savior who tells us to do this. We can be encouraged by these wonderful reminders from God's Word, the Bible. "O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto Thee? or to Thy faithfulness round about Thee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, Thou stillest them" (Psa. 89:8-98O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? or to thy faithfulness round about thee? 9Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. (Psalm 89:8‑9)).
More than three-fourths of the earth's surface is covered by the oceans, the largest of which is the Pacific, some 11,000 miles wide between Panama and the China Sea.
Before explorations were made, it was generally thought that the floor of the oceans was almost level, but researchers have since discovered amazing facts about what is below the surface-among other things, that the floor of the Pacific is mostly rough and irregular, with mountains and deep valleys in many places never seen from above.
If Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, with its peak five-and-a-half miles above sea level, were placed in the deepest part of the Pacific ocean, it would rise five-and-a-half miles above the bottom, but still be completely covered by another mile of salt water. In other words, the ocean at that point is more than six miles deep!
In other parts of the same ocean, where the water is not so deep, many of the underwater mountains break through the surface, causing the upper parts of them to appear as islands. The highest of these is the island of Hawaii, surrounded by other beautiful lower ones, including Oahu, Maui, Kauai and others, extending all the way to Midway Island.
These things all speak majestically of God's wonderful creation, and we will look at them further in the following page.