When you’re in deep waters

We weren’t planning to go far. We were merely teenagers, full of the vitality that the beach seems to bring, with a dash of spreading-our-wings sprinkled in for good measure. My sisters, my cousin Joy, and I hopped onto our intertubes, dodged the waves, and swam out beyond the surf. We were free!

The sun seemed to smile down upon us as we dried off atop our floats. The waves rocked us into a sense of calm and ease. This was perfection. Life at its finest. The sun above, the sea below; and in-between these two powerhouses of nature, we four sun-kissed teenage girls on vacation. On the brink of adulthood, but still enjoying the benefits of youth. What could possibly go wrong?

It felt like we swayed out there for quite a while, our cares as far away as . . . wait, were those our parents running down the beach, waving their arms at us? And why were they running down the beach? Shouldn’t they be right straight ahead, where we left them at the start of our adventure, splayed on their beach towels and chairs, sunhats and sunglasses on duty, directly in front of where we were lounging in the sea?

It began to dawn on us that, as we bathed in the gloriousness of life, we had floated on out past the pier into the wide blue ocean, not to mention way down the beach from where our parents had been seated. 

Our Uncle Chess, who was a Marine and invincible in our eyes, began to try to swim out to us. But as he did, he motioned for us to come on in. Once we jumped off of our intertubes and began to swim back against the current, panic clawed at our now-exhausted selves. For how were we ever going to make it back to shore?

Anyone who has ever taken a dip in the ocean knows that coming back in is much harder than going out, and as this realization dawned on me, I remember thinking that maybe Uncle Chess could just come and save all four of us. That he could use his big muscles to reach out and pluck each one of us right out of the sea, clean out of those rough waters, and deposit us back safely onto the beach. 

As I was reading through Psalm 142 this week, I felt a connection with David, who may have had similar thoughts as he ran from King Saul, who was trying to kill him. While on the run, David spent a lot of time in caves. And this is one of the many Psalms he penned:

I cry aloud to the Lord; I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble. 

When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who watch over my way. In the path where I walk people have hidden a snare for me. 

Look and see, there is no one at my right hand; no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life. 

I cry to you, Lord; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”

Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate need; rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me. 

Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name. Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me.

Clearly, David is in dire straits here. He hasn’t done anything wrong, and yet he is being hunted and fears for his life. He has none of the comforts of home as he hides in caves, never knowing how long he will be safe in one place before moving on to the next. I can imagine he was confused. 

If he was favored by the Lord, why was he on the run? Why was he forced to leave all he knew and to wander about in fear for so long? And why wasn’t God just reaching down from on high and plucking David, His beloved, out of this situation and placing him back on safe, solid ground?

Lydia Brownback, in her book, Sing a New Song, states, We won’t trust God if we believe he demonstrates his love by preventing every crisis. To the contrary, God’s love leads to caves. So long as we are surrounded by friends and a multitude of options, we don’t fully lean on him, and only when we fully lean do we discover that he is everything he has promised to be. 

No matter our trouble, we can be confident of rescue, of receiving the mercy David pleaded for, because of what God did in a different cave – the tomb of Jesus. The Son of God lay dead in that cave, but after three days he was brought out alive, and “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ . . . and raised us up with him . . . so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-7).

Even though David may have preferred a quick rescue, like the teenage version of me in the ocean; God had a plan, and God was faithful to follow that plan. God did rescue David, but it was in His time and in His way. 

And when God delivered David from Saul, David praised God:  He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me (Psalm 18:16-19).

In my case, as much as Uncle Chess would have loved to hover above us and lift each of us girls out of those deep waters, that wasn’t possible. We were going to have to put in the work. So we grabbed onto our floats, determination on our faces, and we swam with all we had. We came to the breaking waves. We jumped over some, dove under others. 

And there were one or two that took us down. They tossed and twisted us underneath the water, scraped us against the bottom of the ocean. But they also took us that much closer to the beach. We exhaled that salty water, gulped in that fresh air, stood up on sea legs and began to move down the beach to where our parents had set up camp for the day. 

Onward we trudged, four girls on the brink of womanhood, most of us still clutching our wrung-out floats as we made our way back to the safety of what was familiar, the comforts of home. We were survivors. We were warriors. We had fought the sea and won. But really, we were just grateful to be back on dry land and in one piece.

We girls ended that particular adventure by collapsing on the beach towels and chairs that our parents had laid out for us as they saw us from afar and anticipated our return. With relief that the ordeal was behind us, we made plans for the family spaghetti dinner and fun movie night ahead of us.

He doesn’t always come for us in the way we think He will. But He always comes. If you find yourself in deep waters today, you may need to do a bit of swimming, a bit of tossing and twisting. You may end up with a few scrapes. But you can be assured, along with David, that when our spirits grow faint within us, it is God who watches over our way.