However, even those last people will never be able to understand the width, the depth, the height of the ocean. They will never know all the creatures, all the underwater worlds, all the secret volcanoes. They cannot see the storm on one end and the sunrise in the other. They cannot predict the ocean's movements, or winds, or direction. It's just too big.
Still, one thing is certain: the goal must always be to go deeper.
I have a story.
The story begins a week from last Thursday. For the last several months, I had been working on a plan-- a plan which I thought was great, really really great. But then Thursday night, the plan fell apart. It unexpectedly, comprehensively dissolved. I was crushed. It was such a disappointment.
But do you know? It wasn't a screeching-tires-crunching-metal sort of falling apart. The way it fell apart was so right, and so beautiful in its dissembling, it was more like a heavy gray cloud falling apart into thousands of crystalline flakes. It was a floating sort of fall.
Still, I cried on Thursday night for a long time, and Friday met me with a heavy heart.
Saturday found me in my apartment all day, grumpily tearing through stacks of finals. Finally, at 8pm, I escaped. It was after dark, but I didn't care. I needed fresh air, and gulped it in while walking to the lake.
What do I do when I need a reset button?
I climb a tree.
I had a specific one in mind-- I'd spotted the tree on a walk earlier that week with Carly. This tree stretches out over the water, its branches simultaneously reaching down, and to the side, and up towards the sky, like a great bark-covered sunburst. In the dark, I climbed up its trunk, wedged myself between the branches and began to pray.
It was a pissed-off prayer. I was really ticked at God. I was angry at Him for messing with my plan, even though I knew the plan probably wasn't the best in the first place, and I was angry at how He's been running my story.
"I am SICK of being here God!" I said. Or whispered. Or mouthed silently, while swinging my fists between branches. "I am TIRED of this. I'm sick of this season-- why does everyone else get to be in a different season God? I'm TIRED of what you're doing!!"
At one point I pictured Jesus hovering there and I demanded answers. Normally when I picture Jesus during prayers, he looks very much like a normal guy. This Jesus, though, was more of the cliched, cartoon version-- white robed and everything. How OBNOXIOUS: a floating, cartoonish, white-robed Jesus. Probably indicative of my current feelings about Him-- and perhaps my momentary suspicion that He was not as powerful or as attentive as I've believed Him to be.
"Can I even maintain this hope?" I demanded. "Can I even believe you ever gave me the promise I thought you did?! Is it ever going to happen?? I want more than what you're giving me right now!"
"It's COMING!" Floating Jesus said.
"WHEN?!!" I roared at Him.
"You have to WAIT," He said adamantly.
That sort of made me want to flip Him off.
It was an honest prayer-- an angry, tearful, raw prayer. And it was intense-- only interrupted once when a man came down to the water and began to pee into the lake.
Yes. A man peed directly beneath me while I was shouting at the Floating Jesus.
I did my best to look like a tree branch.
When the man was done peeing, and I was done praying, I slid back down. I felt a little guilty walking back home that night. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to want to flip Jesus off-- I hoped God wouldn't smite me.
Far from it. I look back on this moment now after the week I've had, and realize God's response was something more along the lines of: "Fine. You want to get real with me? I'm about to get real with you. Listen up daughter." From this point on, God cranked up the volume.
I was exhausted by the time I got back-- once in bed, it didn't take long for me to feel my body slipping out of consciousness. But just before I did, a thought suddenly lit into my mind:
"Am I enough for you Greta?"
I paused. I had no idea how to answer that question. The thought hovered there, like a flickering neon sign. Finally, I pushed it out of my head and let oblivion take over.
The next morning however, I wrote the question down in my journal while church worship was starting:
"He asks, 'Am I enough for you Greta?' ... And I don't know how to answer." I paused and thought about my prayer from the night before. Beneath what I'd just written, I wrote:
"I want more. :("
Richard's sermon addressed God's burning bush moment with Moses. In that moment, Moses doesn't like God's plan any more than I did in my tree the night before. At one point, Moses asks God, "What name do I give to the Israelites when they ask who sent me?"
God thunders back, "I AM." Richard elaborated-- "'I AM your sufficiency. I AM the power of your freedom. I AM everything you need to fulfill your calling.'"
I wrote that last line down in my journal, and then drew an arrow from what I'd written before-- "Am I enough for you Greta?"-- to the words Richard had just spoken: "I AM everything you need to fulfill your calling."
"Well then," I thought to myself.
Then Richard got to the end of his sermon. He began discussing Moses' disillusionment. Even though Moses finally stepped into God's story, and went and talked to Pharaoh, things got pretty crappy for Moses. Pharaoh basically laughed at Moses' request to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, doubled the Israelites' work load, and had his overseers beat the Israelites if they couldn't meet their daily quota. The Israelites were furious with Moses, and basically wanted to pulp-ify him. Moses then cries out to God and basically asks Him, "What are you DOING, God?!"
I imagined Moses shaking his fist at the sky. "Like me," I thought.
"The lament is one of the purest forms of worship there is," Richard said. "God wants our honesty. He wants a relationship with us. If we assume that the Christian life is only ever praise, we're missing the point. Just look at the Psalms; look at David's crying out and his despair. We should feel comfortable coming to God with laments. The dancing comes after the tears."
This was a great comfort-- and yet, I returned to heart-ache. As the worship started up again, I wrote in my journal: "Why ME, God?"
The answer arrived like a lightning bolt in the ocean storm of my mind:
Let me take you deeper, Greta.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Starting Monday, my school commenced our annual "Spiritual Life" week, where the kids have chapel every day. Monday's speaker was a guy named Zach. He talked about plans falling apart. He talked about seeking purpose. He talked about Daniel being taken away from his home and forced to work in the court of the Babylonian king. He discussed his suspicion that Daniel must have doubted God on the long journey to Babylon; must have asked, "What are you doing Lord?" He talked about the necessity of prayer within our hungry, angry questions.
After chapel, I told my seniors about my experience with prayer over the last year. I really try hard to be open and transparent with my students, so that they then feel comfortable being vulnerable with one another in our class discussions. "Last year was one of the hardest years of my life," I told them laughingly. "It was my first year of teaching, so I was crazy stressed out, trying to get everything together and planned, and trying to 'prove' myself, and I felt insecure and scared half the time... My parents were getting divorced, my personal life was a ROLLER-COASTER, it-- was-- terrible!" I laughed again. "BUT! In the midst of that... I had to pray. There was just absolutely no other way I was going to make it through the day. There were literally some mornings when I cried under the covers and told God that I could not do it, I could NOT do it, and I would TELL him I couldn't do it, and then He would somehow tell me that He would carry me through. Only then... would I be able to get out of bed and face it all. As a result, one of the hardest years of my life... taught me to love prayer."
I told them about my angry prayer in the tree the other night, and encouraged them to be real with God. Then I told them about the man that peed right beneath me, and mimed looking like a tree branch. That was probably their favorite part.
After endorsing prayer so fervently though, a funny thing happened. Tuesday and Wednesday, I didn't particularly feel like having my morning prayer. Normally, after doing my hair and makeup, I crawl back into bed in my pajamas with a cup of coffee and just talk to God for a while. Wednesday morning I thought, "Eh, I don't feel like I have much to talk to God about today. And I'm running late. Phooey."
Still, I climbed back into bed with my coffee, anticipating a mind-wandering prayer, a going-through-the-motions prayer. Sometimes that's what morning-coffee-prayer-time looks like.
Not this morning
As SOON as I "got into position," I suddenly had two Bible verses filling my whole head. I can't remember the last time I've read these passages, but there they were. The first was from Isaiah 40:29-31:
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
They will run and not grow weary,
They will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:29-31
The second was from Hebrews 12:1-3
... Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus... Consider Him... so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Furthermore, when reading my Bible the night before, I had found these two verses stacked right on top of each other in my One Year Bible-- two verses that appear miles away from one another in the actual Bible but happened to be within the same centimeter when organized in the One-Year format:
Psalm 27:13-14
I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. WAIT for the Lord; be strong and take heart and WAIT for the Lord.
And:
Proverbs 20:22b
WAIT for the Lord, and He will deliver you.
Once again, it all went into the journal. Beneath the four passages, I wrote: "I suppose the message is clear then: Look to the Lord and be strong, take heart. Do not grow weary, but hope in the Lord. Persevere and WAIT on the Lord. He is faithful in keeping His promises."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Shall I get louder, Greta?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The speaker at chapel on Wednesday was a guy named Jeff. Jeff is probably 6'5" and is all arms, legs, and giant facial expressions. He moved those arms and legs into all kinds of ridiculous shapes as he acted out various stories in his talk, pantomiming trying to push his truck out of his garage that morning which subsequently led to his kicking a hole in the garage wall; singing a song about his deep ardor for his comfort food, cheese; interviewing one of our seniors about the school's losing football team; then acting out meeting a girl, falling for her, and ultimately getting rejected. Throughout the talk, Jeff was hilarious, animated, and ridiculously silly.
And then all of a sudden he got profound.
In addressing different failures-- different failed "plans"-- Jeff brought us back to this:
(I'm quoting from his notes, which I demanded he give me after I heard this talk):
"Our grounding promise should be this: Romans 8:28-- We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Purpose is the magic word. There is purpose in the trial you are undergoing, your hardship, the direction of your path. ... James 1:2-4 tells us, Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. This dissonance gives way to a more satisfying consonance; this dense rain to a bolder rainbow; this wretched sin to a more glorious redemption. ...No matter where we are in life, we will have our plans frustrated; we will not have our way. Instead of reaching for the cheese of comfort, take comfort in the fact that God has a purpose in our trial for maturity and completeness."
In the midst of my grief over frustrated plans, in the midst of my fatigue, in the midst of my desire for something ELSE-- these words were medicine.
Jeff ended his talk by reading a blurb from an email he had once received from his best friend Kirk, as Kirk was preparing to go off to Africa. Jeff gave me a copy of this too-- look at the end of it:
"I must learn to listen, to wait, and to be. So in the holy silence that comes when I abandon my own pursuit to 'be enough' I hope to hear the voice of God saying, "Kirk, I love you. Let that be enough.' So I will place my hope in the God of hope, whose promises do not go unfulfilled and whose Word and love for his people will always endure, that I will let him love me and let that be enough."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He asks, Am I enough for you Greta?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
That night, I led my Bible study of five freshmen girls who go to UW. The chapter we happened to be on was John, Ch. 6. It's all about how Jesus is the bread of life-- that everything else will leave us hungry but that He is ENOUGH. I had asked each of the girls to consider what their next "step" in their faith walks might be. The last girl to share said that she wanted to get to a place where she understood that Jesus was truly ENOUGH.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He asks, Am I enough for you Greta?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
On Thursday, driving to school, I heard a song lyric that said something about getting so far into the ocean that you lose sight of shore; only then, is it time to turn back.
I don't know yet if my heart fully understands that God is enough; I think part of my heart still longs for more... still longs for shore. But I understand now that I am meant for deeper waters, and that I will only be capable of successfully living on land once I have lost sight of it altogether in the vast depth of the ocean.
On Friday, the chapel at school was simply a day of worship. I tried at first to worship up front among my students, but found myself feeling self-conscious. I wondered: am I closing my eyes for them, or for the Lord? Finally, we started singing a song that begins, "He is jealous for me." At that point, I left my spot among the students and walked to the back of the auditorium where I could worship without being seen.
I closed my eyes and sang. I pictured being deep in the ocean, far, far away from shore, in the crow's nest of a ship. The sun was rising over the water. Something lifted me out of the crow's nest and I danced in the sky.
Disappointment lingers. My story is still not the story I would wish for today. But in spite of that, I am overwhelmed with understanding God's LOVE for me. I have not been forgotten. I am part of an incredible adventure, and I am in the midst of something powerful. There is PURPOSE in this moment.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Let me take you deeper, Greta.
Yes, Lord-- I will go.
