In Over My Head

I chuckled when I walked into church a couple of weeks ago and read that our pastor was starting a new series entitled, “Going Deeper.” If I didn’t know better I’d think he’d been listening in on my conversations with God from the past week. It seems that when God is trying to drive home a point, He tends to cover all of His bases.

Though my prayer recently had been asking God to give me all of Him that I could handle, I have to admit I expected more mountaintop living and less of the battle between my flesh and the Spirit of God. To get more of God we must let go of more of ourselves. Why is that always so hard?

Without going through the laundry list of sins that I constantly battle, suffice it to say that as soon as I pray something as seemingly noble as asking for more of God, it’s almost as if He’s asking me if I really mean it. Without missing a beat the fear, pride and selfishness that characterizes me jumps front and center threatening to squelch the fire that has just begun to flicker.

Going deeper with God looks different for everyone. We are all in a different place spiritually, and our struggles are unique to each of us. For me, going deeper means obeying with no guaranteed results of the desired outcome. I’ve mentioned this before. It’s still a problem!

Driving is my least favorite activity. I cannot wait until my 15-year old gets her license. My plan is to hand her the keys and hop in the passenger seat indefinitely.

Not only do I hate driving, I especially hate it when the weather is not optimum, like in fog, for instance. Pursuing obedience is like driving in the fog. I will never forget as a young college student driving alone to see some friends in Nebraska from my home in Iowa. Not a long drive by any means, but it might as well have been from New York to California. The fog was mud soup, and the only thing I had going for me was the taillights of the driver in front of me. If he changed lanes so did I whether I needed to be in that lane or not.  I stuck so close to that driver that in today’s world riding on someone’s tail like that would be considered road rage.

Besides the fog I was also dealing with the handicap of having absolutely no sense of direction. I know one way to get everywhere I need to go, and if the road is blocked off or the weather blocks my vision, I’m in real trouble.

You get where I’m going with this. Sometimes deepening our faith simply means getting out of the boat. Other times, the process becomes nothing short of a tsunami, blowing in out of nowhere, taking our breath away and forcing us to hang on without knowing what comes next. In either case, it’s only about us to the degree that we’re willing to obey. The rest is about God.

That is where my husband and I find ourselves right now as God has seen fit to bring a couple into our lives that He is asking us to walk alongside. We are completely in over our heads not to mention there is no guarantee that the time we put into them will guarantee the outcome we are hoping for which is restoration. But if our desire is deeper faith and obedient living then we simply follow closely to God’s leading and let Him worry about the rest.

Hillsong United has a great song out right now called Oceans (Where Feet May Fail). My favorite lines go like this:

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders

Let me walk upon the waters

Wherever You would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger

In the presence of my Savior

Isn’t that the point of the Christian life? To allow God to blow the borders off of our tiny faith and bring us to the end of ourselves so that, once again, all there is is Him?