It’s a deep calling to deep.
Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me. The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night His song shall be with me— A prayer to the God of my life. - Psalm 42v7-8
This past week, something has become increasingly clear to me and begun to sprout within my heart—
God is in the deep.
I’ll be traveling to the beach soon, and the image of the vast ocean stretching out before me has haunted my thoughts. Storm clouds meet the waterline, and waves billow, rise, and then fall in towering walls of mighty power.
Anyone who has traveled to the ocean, perhaps seen it before a tropical storm, or observed the water washed in moonlight can attest to this….mystery….that encapsulates the sea. During the day, in bright sunshine, the seaside is a cheerier place, although in some sense, still solemn. With crowds of tourists, beach balls, and the beating heat upon your neck, the majesty of the water doesn’t quite hit home as it does in times of an oncoming storm or at night when the beach is empty.
For the past several years, the otherness of the ocean has held me spellbound. And I never could put words to it before, except to say that staring out at something so vast made me feel like I could be swallowed up in those rushing tides in a moment. Something so large as the ocean, which covers most of the planet, being so little discovered, fascinates me—terrifies me too—because I’m not much of one to enjoy spontaneity and unknowns. I like a plan, and I like to make it myself.
Spending hours looking at something created that is so immense made me feel like a speck that could be wiped away from the face of the planet if God so chose.
Another facet of the sea effect has come to my attention—this desire to know what hides in the depths, an aching pull on my heartstrings that could not be described in human terms only. Not just to know, but to experience what it would be like to walk on the bottom of the sea, what would that be like?
This last week, as the image of the ocean depths encapsulated me through songs, imagination, reading, and Scripture, everywhere I went, I began to understand something,
God is in the deep.
Like a tidal wave (the water descriptors are getting carried away), taking me unawares, I was knocked down.
Tide pools and shallow water are all well and good, but at some point, I’ve missed or ignored the call to tread deeper and venture further. Fear of what awaits out there has kept me limited to the sandbars, but there comes a time in every Christian’s life, I think, when playing it safe is taken away from you. It is a mercy when God doesn’t allow us to stay where we are, where it’s comfortable and, for me, predictable—where I can say what happens and what doesn't. But what kind of control would I have on the open ocean, with nothing to cling to? There is no debate on who has the upper hand when one is a small human in a vast expanse.
Perhaps that is precisely the point.
Oftentimes, you can’t know what will happen until you take the plunge. That’s what faith is.
He wants all of me,
He wants me to follow Him somewhere where my feet cannot reach the bottom any longer,
He wants all of me.
In the eye of the storm is where I’m safest, so much more than the shallows. Knowledge through experience brings about trust and a peace that cannot be rocked by waves, but the tide pools don’t teach that, because they can’t. Throwing myself into the sea, allowing myself to sink, goes against every fiber of my being. What can I do, though, when the ocean is His mercy?
I’m still learning to understand precisely what deep calling to deep looks like. Following the call of my heart out into the open water, into adventure and unknown, is where He is.
Connection is a deep desire in the human person. To have relationship with one another, finding our people who we trust and advocate for us, and more than anything understand who we are, is part of us as beings created after the image of a God who prizes union.
Something within us, deep in our spiritual and biological makeup, is crying out for a depth that cannot be met, ever, by anything the world has to offer, though glimpses are uncovered everyday as we walk through life. I’m finding the undiscovered depths can only be where He is, and where He is, I am found.
Somehow, there is shelter the deeps, where He sets a table before me in the presence of my demons and worst fears. I have yet to tread farther, but He is luring me like a siren’s song.
The ocean is unpredictable, dark, mysterious, so vast, chaotic. Water cannot be formed into a perfect shape that I’d like to call safe. It is uncontrollable. My own life has sailed so far out of my reach of control that all I can do is cast myself onto Jesus and beg for His help, as Peter cried out to the Lord to pull Him from the waves that all of a sudden seemed so tall.
Stillness and dwelling have begun to invade my mind as I let myself go and surrender to the rushing water, knowing that He will meet me below.
And when I rise again, I know He will be with me, pulling me from the waves and raising me far above where I could have ever dreamt of.
But meanwhile, I will wait with Him, and He will teach me the meaning of deep calling to deep.