I have stuff going on in my personal life, and I am in a place of significant uncertainty. (More news later.) Psalm 42:5-8 is resonating:
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
My soul is downcast within me: therefore I will remember you...
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls.
All your waves and breakers have swept over me.
By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me-- a prayer to the God of my life.
I quoted this from the New International Version, the NIV, but I also like how other translations convey these thoughts. Different translations are frequently similar, but sometimes they convey a different nuance. The Message puts it:
When my soul is in the dumps, I rehearse everything I know of you...
Not just remembering, but REHEARSING. Telling yourself over and over, so you don't forget. I am thinking of Aslan's instructions to Jill in the Chronicles of Narnia book, The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis:
Remember, remember, remember the Signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lay down at night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the Signs...
Then there is the Deep Calls to Deep line. It's beautiful, to be sure. But what does it MEAN, exactly? The New Living Translation gives us a clue:
I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tide sweep over me.
Some of you have lost spouses recently (or Loves, and today is Valentine's Day.) The waves of Grief are deafening for you right now. Or perhaps you feel overwhelmed and tumbling in the Breakers in other ways. Your life is out of control, or perhaps BEYOND your control.
Last night I had a couple of dreams. In the first, I was on stage at church, playing with the worship team, except not all the strings were on my guitar yet and the electronics weren't hooked up right, but THE SONG WAS STARTING AND I WASN'T READY! In the second dream, I had been tasked with finishing a ride patterned after the ejection seat of a fighter jet. You put your head back against the headrest, pull the rings between your legs, and then you rocket upward. I was under the seat, trying to finish the wiring and the safety's, but the guest was ready to strap in, I was supposed to test it on myself first, warning lights were flashing and the countdown to launch was blaring, AND I WASN'T READY!
The dreams were a matched set with the same meaning. Things are in Motion, and I am not ready. But for some things, like the loss of a loved one, there IS no ready... You just have to pick up the guitar and play ...
I am reminded of a couple of visions God gave me awhile back, where I was driving a car down a narrow road with obstacles in the way to dodge. Suddenly, my speed picked up because GOD was mashing the gas pedal. We were going uncomfortably fast, but God was telling me that HE controlled the timetable and would accelerate things at his pace, not mine. Later, God showed me the same scene again, only this time I was in a top-fuel dragster. God had His foot on the gas and we were ROCKETING down the road.
Things were In Motion, I was NOT in Control, and I didn't like it one bit, No Sir! But sometimes God puts us in these situations. Where we are not ready. Where we are not in control. I was stressing to God last week about the future, emotionally hyperventilating about things. "But God, what about THIS??? AND what about THAT???" In response, God spoke to my heart and said simply, "You're just going to have to trust Me."
When my soul is in the dumps, I rehearse everything I know of you.
Remember the Signs.
image ©Brian Bielmann/Quiksilver,
https://www.odysseysurfschool.com/blog/surfing/wipeout-like-pro/
Comentarios