Devotionals

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Out of our depth

“Deep calls to deep at the sound of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.” The soul of the psalmist is poured out in these words, longing for some kind of response to echo back at him. Psalm 42 (and 43) is a place where our subjective experience is met by His objective truth and the result is a deepening of trust.

Sometimes we nearly go under in despondency, only to find that the Lord is going under with us; below us in support, and surrounding us with His all-loving arms, well able to save us.

Last night I was doing a Bible study with some men from my church. We were looking at the exciting things that were happening in the book of Exodus and we stopped at a verse in Chapter 19, just before the giving of the Commandments. The Lord is reminding His covenant people that they have been delivered from Egypt. The beautiful phrase that we paused at was this:

“How I carried you on eagles wings and brought you to Myself.” (v4)
Now the Israelites had just been through the trauma of packing everything up, following an untested, almost unknown leader into a definitely uncharted territory and then crossing a river on dry land with an angry army in hot pursuit. It probably didn’t feel anything like being carried on eagle’s wings! But there it is: the truth revealed. God was there all the time – carrying them all the way.

Doing things God’s way involves stepping out into the unknown – and that’s scary. But if it was easy, we wouldn’t need to depend on God. The good thing about stepping into the deep is that the Lord is already there waiting for us to get our feet wet. Fear will keep us safe and dry, but it will also dry up our passion, and harden our hearts.

Isaiah said “When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers they will not sweep over you”. Going through water can be a terrifying experience. We are not in control of the currents, nor even the depth. God promises that we will not be overcome by these uncontrollable factors. Not that He will necessarily deliver us out of them. He will teach us to swim. He will get us to float, kick our legs and feel confidence in the water, all the while, never letting go of us. Before we know it we will be calling others into the deep, assuring them that it is okay, and that we know the way.
“Deep calls to deep” but “deep” must answer. Ours is not a superficial faith that prefers to take a walk in the park on a sunny afternoon, and refuses to walk in the shadows. Ours is a faith that says with Job, “The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

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