Thursday, August 1, 2013

Deep Calling Deep!

 One of my favourite places to be is Long Beach on our BC coast.
There is nothing that makes me feel as small and insignificant as the powerful, endless roar of the ocean waves as they come crashing onto the shore.

I was reading Psalm 42 today and was moved by the poetic words but even more by the message the words deposited into my mind and spirit.
This Psalm expresses  the agonizing cry of one overcome by life's  trouble and heartache.
"Deep calls unto deep" --  there is no help , only sorrow calling for more sorrow until the billowing waves pour over the sufferer  threatening to crush what is left of a fragile  life.
This Psalm is the WHY, O WHY ? cried by those who see their hopes and dreams lying dead at their feet.

Yet, no matter how deep the storm that rages,  no matter how powerful the emotional tsunami,  no matter how dark the horizon appears,  no matter how hopeless tomorrow looks ...  there is One who  is our Rock to cling to .
"Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?  
Hope in God, 
for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance."  
Ps. 42:5 
  
But that was not the verse that my heart focused on this morning.   Though I have read this Psalm many times I never really noticed the poignant sweetness of verse eight. 
It says .... 
"The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, 
and in the night His song shall be with me....  a prayer to the God of my life."    

When we are going through difficult trials of life, how often have we dreaded the coming night, knowing that fear and anxiety lurk there.  In the night when we are so aware of being alone, our troubled mind and aching heart keeps us awake. We see no answers to our need, find nothing to soothe our raging emotion. In the dark of night there is no light, only magnified shadows that terrify. 

But there is this ...  "In the night His song shall be with me... "

I find it significant that the Hebrew word for 'song'  here is in the feminine.   
Does that not immediately bring to the mind a mother singing to her infant?   
A child waking at night cries out and the listening mother, immediately  hears the cry and gathering the child to her bosom, she softly sings her lullaby.   The child's fears melt,   it nestles in the warmth of his mother's arms, comforted and safe.  What tender expression of love is the picture of a child being rocked to sleep by  his  mother's lullaby. 
That is what God is telling us here ...   No matter how dark our night, He is there to sing His lullaby over us - His lullaby becoming a prayer in our hearts,  birthing hope for the 'morrow!     All is well,  for He is our life!


6 comments:

ellen b. said...

Beautiful, Julie!

Sandy said...

Thank you Julie for this wonderful post...I don't sleep well and when awake in the night, songs of worship are always going through my mind..and I am able to pray and sing softly and then I am ok again...God is Near
Thank you...Pictures are great as well...I love being by the water and how powerful it is..A true sign of God's great Power...
Love from NC

Kathy said...

Such a wonderful devotional Julie! Thank you for those verses. I too enjoy the ocean and it's power is to be respected....as is the wonderful power of God's great love that comforts us in our times of anxiousness. Your photos are really nice.

Anneliese said...

Thank you, Julie. Ir is so good to rest in the knowlegde that sorrows can not separate us from the love of God.

Thoughts on Life and Millinery. said...

Julie, after growing up by the beach I have seen the many moods of the ocean. A couple of thoughts...that the edge of the ocean is set by God and can not go beyond what He allows. I learned early on not to fight a wave head on but to always dive deep below it. The waters are still around me as the wave passes above and my body rises easily to the smooth surface behind the wave. It used to take great faith to do that dive; after many dives I stop hesitating and learned to dive deep and wait until the wave was gone. Wish I had learned to have the faith to do the same with approaching turmoil in life...my tendency is to fight instead of diving deep.

James Janzen said...

I miss flying into Tofino and walking through the forest to the beach. One of my fondest memories.