Friday, March 20
Read: Psalm 130; Ezekiel 33:10-16; Revelation 11:15-19
I’ve always been a strong swimmer. Growing up, I spent a lot of summers on the Gulf Coast. For most of my life, the water felt like a place of confidence and a place where my soul felt at peace. One day in my early forties, however, that confidence was tested when I got caught in a riptide. No matter how strong my strokes were or how hard I pushed, I wasn’t gaining ground. For the first time in the water, I felt the limits of my own ability. Strength alone wasn’t going to save me. I had to stop fighting, recognize what was happening, and respond in a different way, or face the risk of being pulled under. I had to let the current carry me to the rocks of the nearby jetty. The rocks were the only way out of the water. I emerged from the water a little scraped up and more than a little shaken. I would never enter the water with the same ease and comfort again.
Psalm 130 begins with a cry many of us know well: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” The psalmist isn’t speaking from a place of control or competence, but from desperation. The depths are where illusions of self-sufficiency die. When we rely solely on our own strength, our discipline, our experience, our willpower, we often find ourselves exhausted and sinking. Like fighting a riptide, striving harder can actually pull us farther from safety. The psalm later warns us that if we rely on our ability or righteousness, we are all in fact sunk.
Thankfully, the psalm does not end in despair. It moves out of the depths and into hope: “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word, I put my hope.” Deliverance comes not from our ability, but from God’s mercy and steadfast love. Out of the depths, we learn to trust not in ourselves, but in the one who hears our cry and has the power to pull us to solid ground.
In this Lenten season, we often take on spiritual disciplines and summon up willpower to give up certain vices. Let me suggest that as we do these things, we remember to not get caught up in the current of what we are doing, but to remember that the purpose of these actions is to open us up to a deeper experience of the living God and to develop more trust in the one who is our rock and redeemer.
Prayer
God, sometimes we are unaware of how deep the water is and how inept we are to save ourselves. Give us the ability to see our need of you and to cry out to you from the depths, to wait for you and put our hope in you. Amen.
The Reverend Ashley Davis is Assistant to the Resident Bishop and Director of Connectional Ministries for the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. Also, she serves on the Huntingdon College Board of Trustees.
