Ephesians 1:15-22; Psalm 42
Our divinely designed bodies absolutely depend on water. Our general well-being depends on it to do such things as flush out toxins and carry nutrients to cells. Yet we lose water every day through our breathing, perspiration and uh, other bodily functions we all know well enough. And boy do we feel it when we fail to replenish this water. Dry, sticky mouth. Desperate thirst. A dangerously wilted kind of feeling. Our bodies indeed let us know that not having enough water can be very much a matter of life and death.
The voice speaking to us from Psalm 42 is one desperate to slake their thirst. Now, it may well be that this faithful ancestor was physically dehydrated at the time when this prayer song was penned. But this ancient talk of thirst is less medical and rather more metaphorical, for this is the voice of desperately parched soul.
This person hadn’t always been so spiritually dehydrated. There had been healthier, happier days … days of being wonderfully replenished by the steadfast, life-sustaining love of God that streams most noticeably – indeed, like a river -- through a community of faithful people offering thankful, joyful worship. Being in such blessed company gathered in a house of God felt as peaceful and powerfully restorative as what the Psalmist imagines a deer must experience when finally partaking of fresh, flowing streams after long searching and panting for it.
Yes, there had been healthier, happier days … the days before whatever dire circumstances had cast this soul face down into a spiritually dehydrated desert, feeling forgotten by God and trampled upon by the mocking of unbelievers. Instead of experiencing nourishing flow from the Living God, the Psalmist felt only the salty trickle of their tears.
Yet Psalm 42 is not just a song of deep lament. Its words sympathetically companion any and all experiences of feeling forgotten by God and lost to faithful community any human has ever had. But as it does so, it simultaneously begins lead us out of the desert of spiritual dehydration. The tear-trickled face rudely mocked by unbelievers and by memories of healthier, happier days somehow finds a fresh hope welling up from within. In reply to the ridiculing question, “Where is your God?” the Psalmist suddenly and resolutely sings, “Hope in God … I shall again praise Him, my help and my God.”
How is this possible? How does human hope in God’s help ever manage to well up during times of spiritual desolation?
It happens because deep calls to deep. God’s deep, wide, steadfastly flowing love calls out to the deep spiritual essence all of us who have been created in God’s image have. It calls out to our very souls.
Thought much about your soul lately? I find people tend not to think much about it until they find themselves contemplating their mortality. The focus seems to be more about what happens to it after we die than the where, what and why of it is while we are alive. But I rather much agree with C.S. Lewis who once pointed out, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” In line with this faithful perspective, I find we can say that God calls to our souls through the mind, emotions and free will God created us with. The life-replenishing realities of this calling are fully revealed to us through Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of our souls (1 Peter 2:25) and in whom our souls find their true rest (Matthew 11:29).
I get so inspired whenever I hear witness of deep calling to deep, especially when it is boldly and beautifully expressed by people who have suffered greatly. We find this in Psalm 42 and so very many other places in the Bible. We also find it inspirationally expressed beyond Scripture. One such expression that I dearly love is through the hymn, “It is Well With My Soul.”
Do you know this one? Regrettably, I don’t find it our Blue Hymnal. If you do know it, though, would you care to sing the first verse with me now? “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way … when sorrows like sea billows roll …whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say … it is well, it is well, with my soul.” Lovely, isn’t it? And all the more so when you learn the deep calling to deep story of the man who wrote the words.
His name is Horatio G. Spafford. He was born in Troy, NY in 1828 and became a very prominent lawyer in Chicago. But more significantly, he was a deeply spiritual Presbyterian. He was a devout student of Scripture, turning to its wisdom and revelation of Jesus Christ to keep the eyes of his heart enlightened. We can trust this is what helped him discern deep calling to deep as he endured several severely spiritually dehydrating tragedies – the death of a son, followed by the loss of all of his real estate holdings after the great Chicago fire of 1871, followed two years later by his being unable to attend a scheduled family trip to Great Britain. But his wife and four daughters, ranging from ages 2 to 11, traveled on across the Atlantic … a trip tragically disrupted when their steamship was struck by an iron sailing vessel. His wife, Anna, survived. Their daughters, along with 226 other people, perished at sea. As he traveled in grief to be with Anna, with sorrows rolling like sea billows, he was inspired to write the words to this moving hymn.
How? With all that cascading grief in this life, how could he possibly say all was well with his soul? Deep called to deep. And so he found himself clearly communicating his peace, comfort and hope in the redemptive power of Jesus Christ. The beautiful and inspiring tune, by the way, was given the name Ville du Havre … so named after the steamship that was struck but that did not sink Horation G. Spafford’s hope.
There is so much that happens in this world that can cast us down, taunt us, disquiet and spiritually dehydrates us. Just as our bodies absolutely need plenty of water each and every day, so too our souls need to daily experience spiritual replenishment. And the deep spiritual essence within us all finds a particularly sustaining peace when we keep gathering here in this house of God each week with our glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving to the greatness of God’s power in Jesus Christ. The living flow of our Lord’s love is right here, right now … can you hear deep calling to deep? Amen.
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