The Deep End

The Deep End

For the record, I never cared for the wading pool. From the summer I first learned to swim, I’ve gravitated to the deeper end. I’ve done my share of treading water there—feeling for the firm bottom beneath me, willing my toes to brush against it.

In the deep end, you must eventually trust the water to buoy you, resting when you’re too tired to keep moving your arms and legs. In the deep end, you don’t shun floaties if they’re offered. (Every little bit helps.) In the deep end, you don’t worry so much if your suit is cute and colorful or your style is enviable. You’re just thankful to keep your nose above the water.

In those earliest plunges into the deep end, the things I counted on for comfort seemed to float away. I knew the firm, wet tile around the pool existed, but I couldn’t seem to reach it. The ladder was never near enough for my liking.

I can’t command life’s deep end either. It doesn’t obey me. Its unpredictability demands my trust . . . insists upon it. All I can do in the deep end is cry out to the one who knows my whereabouts and has more than enough power to rescue me and those I love. He is strong to save. He knows the threats and hurts and fears of the deep and is not daunted by any of them. He has been there himself.

My God commands the wind and water. “Billows his will obey,” the old hymn “Love Lifted Me” says. He’s a carpenter who speaks waves into submission and calmly soothes the fears of seasoned fishermen. He’s a storm chaser with a mighty reach and infinite love. And his is the kind of precious and prayed-for help that never arrives in the baby pool. It doesn’t need to. We can stand there.

Whether we choose it or not, it’s the deep end that makes us sure of him and better swimmers in the end.

God, the one and only—I’ll wait as long as he says. Everything I need comes from him . . . He’s solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul, an impregnable castle: I’m set for life.

Psalm 62:1-2, MSG