The Deep

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, My God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God?

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.” Psalm 42:1-2, 7

Something about that word, stirs a quiet flame within me. Hidden within me, is the deep.

The parts of myself, of my heart that slumber most of the time, but then roused by a whisper. Buried in the deep, Jesus You call to me, to the most protected, most sacred portion of my soul.

It does not awaken frequently, but when it does, it cannot be contained. A sweet longing, the tease of fulfillment, the ache for more but joy in the minuscule taste of it. The desire revealed in seeing a glimpse of You.

Oh the intense yearning, starving for spiritual connection, to have my hands in the mane of the Great Lion. The Deep.

For all to be revealed and pain to be shed like dirty clothes, to bask in the warmth of You, Lord, in full and unhindered joy. The Deep.

I ache to be there. To fully be in Your presence. Flashes of Heaven, here on Earth, this body could not contain the joy in higher doses than that. We were made for more, that is why the Deep calls to us.

I have been reading a lot of C.S. Lewis’ work. The more of his writing I read, the more I want to read. This passage is from Mere Christianity, and sums up (in a much better way than I can) what I am trying to express:

“The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”