Deep Calls to Deep

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It’s been awhile since I have written anything. In my last post on addiction it took a lot out of me to write about something so personal. It is an excursion of sorts to reveal yourself. Since that last post I have had quite a few themes bouncing around but nothing I felt compelled to express. Regarding writing something, I did reply to a Facebook post that a high school acquaintance reposted - a diatribe composed by one of the anti-Trump brigade. After a few days considering the absurdity of the logic in the post, I just had to respond. It wasn't exactly the leading of the Lord, it was just my own compulsion and I am sure a waste of time but I did enjoy connecting words together to attempt to reveal the absence of any very sound logic in the post I was responding to. But that’s not satisfying and perhaps pointless.

This last week has been full of news as the US bombed the nuclear sites in Iran. With all the world's busyness, it makes you sort of weary if you pay too much attention to it. The busyness of your own life can make you weary. Truthfully a sort of weariness exists within me, but I refuse to give into it and so here I am writing about just that, weariness.

Looking at the definition of weariness, the first example states what we often consider when we hear the word weary; fatigue. But there is another definition, the reluctance to see or experience any more of something. The second definition is more what I am contemplating.

I don’t want to see another episode of drug addiction from a loved one…but I think I might…and it makes me weary. I don’t want my friend’s child to continue on in sickness. I hope I don’t…but I might…and it makes me weary. I don’t want wars to continue and for children to starve…but they do…and I am weary. And weariness is a common experience to humanity, so what’s the remedy?

The remedy is in God when we are weary. Always. I know that. Yet I am seeking to hear a rhema word, (a personal revelation to me), a word from God amongst the generous logos (a revelation of God’s truth) words in scripture. And so I search and pray.

In Matthew 11:28-30, a passage of scripture we know so well, Jesus invites us to come to Him and yoke ourselves to Him to be able to learn from Him. He tells us His yoke is easy and His burden is light. What I did not know until recently is that in the first century Judaism a yoke was a commonly used metaphor, used by various Rabbis to encourage their followers to “yoke themselves” to their teaching of the Torah. You can imagine the legalistic interpretations and rules that may have come with connecting up with these guys. Jesus is saying that He is gentle and lowly in heart, and when yoked to Him, we will find rest for our souls. Yes indeed. My soul needs this rest.

“Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God”? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is an everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary; and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.   Isaiah 40:27-31

This passage is another well known scripture, at least verse 31 is. It speaks of a renewal of strength for weariness through waiting on the LORD but it starts out by questioning the reader. It is a slightly lesser known section of this great promise to soar like eagles. That beginning is a question from God asking the reader why they are saying that their way is hidden/concealed from God and why is their cause being disregarded by Him. And so the challenge to look beyond the experience we are having to the promise given is laid for us. In this scripture the remedy for weariness is to wait for the LORD. The logos word from God in these verses I believe and apply to my mind and heart. Waiting on a promise is nourishing and it’s a satisfying drink to my soul. 

I conclude with Psalm 42, a favorite. I especially love verse 7 - “Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.” The theme of this psalm is both a downcast soul and a longing for God characterized by a thirst. God is speaking to me through this psalm and most particularly verse 7. My deep thirst for Him is calling.

Psalm 42 

1 "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.  2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” 4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul:how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. 5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,  and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep at the roar of your water falls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. 8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. 9 I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” 10 As with a deadly wound in my bones,  my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” 11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

***verse 6 not numbered in ESV