Faith From The Depths

Faith from the Depths

Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. Psalm 42:7, ESV

JONAH WAS THROWN INTO THE SEA by people who were certain he was the cause of the storm. While in the belly of a fish, he cried out to God for rescue. He had been resistant to the mission God had given him, and even after carrying it out, he was confused and resentful about its outcome. Yet in this terribly disorienting time, when little seemed to make sense, Jonah offered God the faith he had and was used for God’s gracious purposes.

The psalmists capture those times of distress and the disconcerting ways of God. Prayers of faith are not nearly so confident in those seasons of life. Sometimes all we have to offer him are sobs of hope and pleas for mercy. Yet even in our distress, we can know he hasn’t abandoned us. We can take comfort in the stories of Jonah, Joseph, Job, David, and many other psalmists and prophets of God. Like Peter, Paul, Silas, and others who were in prison, we can lift up our praises in spite of our circumstances rather than because of them. In the depths of our souls, we can return to our knowledge of who God is and trust that his plans for us are good.

Even so, there will be times when we feel as if all of God’s waves have pulled us under, and all we can do is cry out from our depths into the depths of his bottomless love and mysterious ways. There’s no shame in that. Sometimes the hints of faith in those moments are more honoring to him than the shouts of faith in less troubling times. Though the next verse of this psalm doesn’t completely pull us back to the surface, it does give us a lifeline to cling to: “By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.” No matter how deep we’ve gone, we can know he is with us. Whatever faith we have, we give to him. Whatever prayer we call out, he hears it. And whatever season we’re in, he answers.

Faith is the subtle chain which binds us to the infinite.