://depth

I find, in my prayers and in my life, that I have these seasons where I tend to hover around certain words and concepts. I'm not sure which is the fountainhead and which is the effluence--whether the words precipitate the ideas or vice-versa--but whatever the case may be, I can more or less tell when I've been in contiguity with something profound for an extended period of time. I have noticed words like "purpose", "relationship", "vitality", and "vision" (to name but a few) all pass through my vernacular with ebbing frequency, and there is a marked effect on me produced by each.


Lately, that word has been "depth".

Now, "depth" can mean a great many things, but as far as I use it now, I mean it in the sense of "profundity", or having incredible relevance to humanity and our relationship with God. The best example that I can presently think of would be Paul's doxology in his epistle to the Romans: "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" These things are massive, and must be encountered face-to-face before we can truly appreciate them.


Love, for instance, has such depth. We hunt for someone to fill the God-given gap in our hearts, but we often have little--if any--idea of what we will find when we reach our end. Parenthood is deep as well; for those of us who look forward to having a child (or four) when we grow older and get married, there is an inexorable hope and expectation, but one that pales in comparison with the experience of at last beholding your first-born, holding them in your arms, and moving on to cultivating your own flesh and blood.


Those are probably two of the more positive things of which we can say as having depth, but sorrow has depth as well as joy. Death cannot be prepared for. When we lose someone very dear to us (if we haven't already), there is an overwhelmingly acute and poignant pain that can only be understood by those who have also reckoned with such loss. Depression is just as incomprehensible; there exists despair that runs so deep that it would welcome death, if only to end the suffering.


My bottom line is this: we so are bound by our naivete and impoverishment of life-experience as to be ignorant of the true meaning--indeed, the true depth--of a whole host of experience. We cannot hope to gain the lovely things prematurely, nor can we hope to immunize ourselves against the dreadful things.


I can say with the utmost confidence that everyone has deep wounds, incomprehensible to the outside world. But as confident as I am of that, I am even more confident that Christ is deeper than our wounds. God is never daunted by our frailty--He sent His Son to confront it. "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power." God runs a course so deep in our hearts, compared to which our deepest scars are but surface scratches, shallow troughs over which God's sea of abundant grace and provision may overflow. We cannot comprehend the depths of God's riches until we come face-to-face and toe-to-toe with Him ourselves, and we will find there the most unsearchable depths, and the most divine healing.


Peace and grace
Stephen