The Deep: Part III

Now, picture yourself answering the call to go deeper. You start to swim out to where you cannot stand on your own anymore. You have left most of your friends behind, so there is no one to grab onto when you get tired. You decide to tread water for as long as you can and resist the Spirit’s urging to just let go and sink into the depth of the Father’s love and care. You finally come to the end of your strength and release yourself into God’s hands.

When you go under the water, you immediately notice that the world appears much different than on the surface - the noise of the world is muffled and distant. The burning, hot sun is diffused and cooled. You hold your breath for as long as you can, but your lungs are ready to burst. You see, in a natural sense, your body was not made to exist beneath the water, just as your old man, your natural man, cannot sustain you in the deep of your Christian life.

At this point you have three choices -

1) Go back to the surface where you can breathe on your own and spend your life treading water, never enjoying the intense pleasure and rest that comes from living in the deep.

2) Go back to the shallow water and spend your life getting slammed by life’s trials, being pushed and pulled by the world’s current

3) Listen to the voice that tells you to lean into the breath of God where to live is to depend upon His life-giving grace; respond to the call that urges you to lean into the intimate sustaining embrace that is hidden from those who exist on the surface, and discover the joyful worship that springs up from the depths of your inner man.

All-sustaining Father, I desire to live at an unnatural depth, where my very survival depends on You. Draw me ever deeper into your unlimited love and grace.

Check out: Romans 8:38-39