When Faith Outgrows Form; The Ocean Beyond Our Island

A song found me this week.

It’s played in the background before, but this time the words came alive—echoing the quiet conversation I’ve been having with God about what it means to let go of form and fall into freedom. The lyric isn’t about rejecting faith; it’s about releasing the masks that keep us from Spirit’s transforming presence.

A Song That Found Me

I had been journaling about a strained relationship when the song played—a reminder of how painful misunderstanding can be, especially when it touches our faith. For years, I’ve wrestled with the judgment that comes when one’s path with God takes a turn others can’t accept. That tension has lived not only in my family but also in my long relationship with the Church itself.

I’ve learned that every calling has a point where faith must outgrow the form that once contained it. The Spirit’s invitation is rarely to abandon what we’ve known, but to follow love into a wider horizon—one that cannot be contained by certainty alone.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
— Romans 12:2 (NRSVue)

Guardians of the Old Ways

In every life there are guardians of the old ways—those who, out of deep devotion, protect what has kept them safe. Their love wears the armor of certainty. I’ve known such a guardian in my own family. Their concern for me was fierce, their fear for my faith even fiercer. For a long time, I mistook that fear for rejection.

But with time, I’ve come to see them as a mirror of the Church itself: the part of us that clings to form when the Spirit is calling us into flow. They were not my enemy, but my teacher—reminding me that every soul must one day choose between the safety of the known and the surrender of the sea.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
— Isaiah 43:18–19 (NRSVue)

The Ocean Beyond the Island

Years ago, when I was commissioned for ministry, I shared a vision that still guides me:

Faith, I said, is like living on an island. We can study every grain of sand, every tide and rock, and come to believe we understand the ocean that surrounds us. But one day, the Spirit invites us to dive in.

At first the surf disorients us—the familiar landmarks disappear. But then, in the quiet beneath the waves, we discover life we never imagined, a vastness that humbles and frees us. I once tethered myself to my island just in case I needed to pull back. In time, I let go.

Each island I’ve visited—each tradition, each theology—shows the ocean from a different vantage point. None can describe the whole of it. And yet, every island is part of the same divine story, surrounded and sustained by the same living water.

“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
— John 4:24 (NRSVue)

For many years, The Joy of Life by Christian Riese Lassen hung in my living room. It isn’t on the wall now—most of my life is in a storage container—but I still hold the image close. The dolphin rising through light has always mirrored my own spiritual metaphor: faith meant to move freely through the depths, drawn ever toward the light of Spirit.

To live in this ocean is to live unveiled—to allow the Spirit to reshape us beyond the boundaries of what we once called religion.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”
— 2 Corinthians 3:17–18 (NRSVue)

From Form to Freedom

I no longer see my story as losing faith. It is faith itself that led me into deeper waters.
The structures I once clung to gave way to something truer—trust that does not need agreement to remain love, and worship that does not need walls to remain holy.

This is the work of discernment: to let form serve faith, not replace it. To trust that when our understanding dissolves, the Spirit is not lost—only revealed.

“I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of me… forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.”
— Philippians 3:12–13 (NRSVue)

Faith does not die when its form breaks.
It expands.
And if we have the courage to follow, it carries us farther than fear, beyond certainty, and into the vast mercy of God.

Reflection Invitation

Where is the Spirit inviting you to loosen your grip on certainty?
What island might you be asked to leave behind so you can discover the ocean of God’s presence more fully?

In this week’s discernment, listen for what form in your life might be outgrowing its purpose—and what freedom may be waiting beneath the surface.

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