SubscribeDeep waters call for deep faith
The blue pool waters at the Y shimmered with calm as swimmers moved effortlessly up and down five of the six lanes. A group of four children and an adult played in the shallow end of the sixth lane. At one point, they gleefully ventured out a couple of inches beyond the edge into what for them was deeper waters.
Looking down from the treadmill in the cardio room, I couldn’t help staring at how liberating the water appeared. A splash here, a glide there. A butterfly stroke from 9 feet to 4 feet for one man. A backstroke for another. One woman using a paddle board to propel her along the length of the pool and back. The water mesmerized me as I fast-walked in place, making miles but going nowhere.
My mind couldn’t help taking me back decades to college, where swimming was a mandatory physical education class. To fulfill my PE requirements, I had to pass the course. To pass the course, I had to jump into the deep end and swim the length of the pool. Suffice it to say, I was like many black children of the 60s and 70s who couldn’t swim and who would only drip their toes into the shallow end of the pool or sit with feet dangling along the edge afraid to even try.
Diving into 9 feet of water frightened me so much that with each jump I panicked as my tense body bouyed back to the surface and I frantically searched for the pole the instructor held out for me. I pushed aside my embarrassment at failing the first and second and third time, and did what I had to do to pass the course. It took about six times before I passed that class, but I did. Still though, I have stayed away from the deep end of the pool.
Now, standing on treadmill and glazing at the blue waters, I feel the call of the deep. A spiritual yearning for a deeper faith is beckoning me even as the water is for physical liberation. I ended 2009 feeling the need to take the plunge into a kind of “deep calls to deep” experience with God. Noted author Richard Foster described it this way in his book, “Celebration of Disciple,” which I discovered several years ago and often return to for reinforcement.
“Perhaps somewhere in the subterrean chambers of your life you have heard the call to deeper, fuller living. You have become weary of frothy experiences and shallow teaching. Every now and then you have caught glimpses, hints of something more than you have known. Inwardly you long to launch out into the deep.”
I’ve played in the shallow end long enough. I don’t know where my quest will take me but I know I am ready to move off the treadmill of a faith that moves in place and allow God to more fully use me as He wants to use me.
So join me as I begin a day-by-day journey into a deeper faith.
Today, I am trusting God to help me support my friend whose health is declining precipitously.
BTW: I have signed up for swimming classes.
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