Deeper Waters

For the past few days (other than today and yesterday) I have been at the beach with the church youth group. Monday we all packed into two vans and headed off to the soft, sandy beaches of Florida and to the Holocaust-like living accomodations we so fittingly called "Shawshank". For five days I woke up in the morning to my friends and fell asleep talking to them at night. In the daytime we played games, hung out, and learned about the book of Nehemiah. At night we, um... did the same thing.

I took a lot from this trip, there were some truly memorable moments - both comical and spiritual - and if I had time I would write about everything I experienced during the last week. But I don't, so right now I really just want to focus on one of the many things I personally got out of the trip.

I believe it was Thursday when I walked down to the beach with Macie, Stephanie, and Andy. It was one of the three times I actually made it down the whole week. I always love going to the beach, even if I don't swim in the ocean. I usually just like to walk down there, get my feet a little wet from the waves coming in, and just look around. I love looking at the ocean because it's so big and colorful. It's always moving too - always changing. On a clear day the sky comes down to meet the ocean at the horizon and there's no telling how far you can see.

So we were standing down on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico, just walking around. Stephanie was drawing Chinese symbols and anime in the sand. Being the ever observant and thoughtful person I like to think I am, I reached an epiphone about my own spiritual life. I get the image of a mouse running around a maze until it finally finds cheese, except in my head like in the cartoons.

I didn't get in the ocean that day, but I thought about the times that I did. The second-most frightening thing to me about swimming in the ocean is the undertow. The first is jellyfish because they sting and they're well, weird looking. The undertow is frightening to me because one time I went out too far and the undertow started to pull me away from the shore out into the deep water. I'm scared to death of deep water and so it was all I could do to keep from panicking. I was swimming as hard as I could to get back but it seemed like I wasn't getting any closer to the shore at all. I had to swim with everything I had to make it back into safe waters.

As I was thinking about that, at the same time I started to think about my spiritual life, my relationship with Jesus. It seems like lately my spiritual life has plateued. It's just not going anywhere right now, even though I am learning and experiencing lots of things. My commitment has been kind of low and I have sort of given up trying to do any more than I'm doing right now. It wasn't a concious thought, but I sort of had the attitude that I couldn't go farther or experience more. I had done all I could do. I even have this attitude where I seem to think I have basically experienced everything in life and that there's nothing out there that can lift me up or take me deeper. Obviously, this is a lie that I believed. I even got this idea in my head that I really didn't need to spend time with God every day. It's amazing how relentless and cunning Satan is at deceiving and misleading us. I honestly don't think we give him enough credit.

I see myself as someone who has waded out into the water and has reached that point, the one where I say "Okay, this is as far as I'm going to go. If I go and farther then it might get dangerous." And so I just sit there in the water, let the waves go over my head for a while, and just look around at the ocean of life that is moving around me. But last Thursday when I was standing on the beach I felt like God was inviting me to come into deeper waters, deeper waters that are not safe.

When God calls someone to follow Him, he stresses that you need to be very committed. Jesus requires you to love him, to be more devoted to him than anything else in your life: your possessions, your circumstances, even your friends and family. And it seems to me that God doesn't hide the fact that it's dangerous because, let's face it, it is. There is a possibility that you might be swept away by the undertow. This year, so many times I have been saying no to God because I'm so afraid that I'll be swept away. I'm so afraid I'll get hurt or that I'll try something and it won't work out or that I'll end up doing it half-hearted and fail. I have been wading in shallow waters, staying in places where it's safe. But God is calling me now to take my relationship with Jesus into deeper, more dangerous waters.

So now that I'm back here in my house in my hometown, I'm trying to take the steps that will make my life more intertwined with the Spirit of God. I just want to know Him. I want to be there when He speaks and I want to feel Him when He inhales and exhales. The solution to everything in life is God. It's not 5 steps, a simple plan, or a formula. It's a true relationship with God. I knew that this whole time, but I was deceived.

It may be a long time before I get to go and experience God and people like I did last week - to wake up and have breakfast with people I love every day. And so I have to hold myself accountable and seek God, not like I used to; but even harder and more desperately.