Deep Calls to Deep

Jumping out of the boat, Peter walked on the water to Jesus. But when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, “Master, save me!” – Matthew the disciple.

In the last year I have been fortunate enough to live next to the beach. The ocean as you can imagine, coming from South America, has played a very big part in my life particularly during my childhood.

Like all things when one gets older one begins to notice things that as a child went unnoticed. This has been the case with many things in my life and in particular the ocean. You see when I was a kid I spent most of my time, in fact all of my time, on the shore as I was too weak to swim and enjoy the spoils of the deep part. I saw from a distance the surfers enjoying the waves and people just floating in the water. All the time I wondered what it would be like. As I grew older I obviously got the chance to venture out into the deep end and enjoyed all that one could do out there that was just not possible on the safety of the shore. Eventually, I left home and therefore my days at the beach came to an end.

Lately, because of where I live I have had the chance to once again start enjoying the ocean. It was during one of these recent outings that I noticed one day something very profound and impacting. The water was very choppy on the surface and so it was hard to remain afloat and be still. While this was going on I decided to dive down to the bottom as I used to do as an older kid. I must have gone down a few meters and no more. When I reached the bottom I noticed how still it was compared to the surface of the water. Though at the top the wind was raging and the water was “nervous and tense” on the deep side it was as if nothing was happening at the top. The stillness there was totally unaffected by the changing elements on the surface.

As I walked out of the water I was struck how well what had just happened portrayed the reality of what happens when we live our lives from within us and not without us. You see within us there is a place on the core of our being where I believe God resides when we invite Him into our lives. Here is the place of our essence, our core, the center of our beings if you like. This is a place deep within us that when we live from it, despite the changing circumstances outside of us (the surface), we remain still and at peace within. Religion has unfortunately done a great job of keeping us from finding this place as taking this journey means inviting mystery into our lives. It means loosening the grip of what happens in the future or what happened in the past by remaining present and in the moment. It is a journey that invites you into a free relationship with your maker that is based on love and trust and not on rule keeping and a certain behavior.

This place exists and is waiting to be discovered within us. We all have the potential to live here however many of us don’t as our fellowship with God is one that has always taken place on the surface of our beings which are our feelings and our mind. For this to change we need to become aware of the place within us so many of us talk about but few of us know or live from where our spirit lives.  This is done by undertaking a journey that leads to a place where our awareness is awaken. It doesn’t happen over night. Just like a normal human relationship it takes time to unravel and develop into a relationship that is real and true and not one just based on feeble shifting feelings and that tickling sensation on our back. It is very normal for many of us to end up very frustrated when our attempts to develop a relationship with God seem to be met by an absence or lack of presence as we seek Him. We need to understand that this is because God’s domain is the heart and not the head. Is in the deep end and not on the surface. Put simply, if we live from the head up and we seek to fellowship and know God within our mind we will miss it as Gods presence within us is not there. Thats why He stands at the door of our heart and knocks and not our mind!

Holding On Loosely is the name I have given to the approach I believe we need to have in order to undertake this journey away from the road of good intentions and controlling behavior and venture into the road of grace. It is through this approach that I began to understand that, unlike Peter in this scene on the water, if we don’t live from the deep part within us, where Jesus lives, the faith and trust we have is simply shallow as it is the product of our works and efforts and not the by-product of being continuously in His presence.

Peter began to drown because he took His eyes of Jesus…! Where do you go to see Jesus in your life? Where do you find Jesus in your life? Where do your eyes lock with His? When you close your eyes do you find that place within you called home where you and your maker live together? If you cant answer yes or know the answer to these questions from personal experience then can I suggest to you that what you are experiencing, like I was in the past, is not the life changing relationship God intends for you.

I believe, like I was, you too will be surprised how superficial our faith and relationship with God can be when we begin to discover that so much of what Jesus showed us and said was a simple manhole cover to the true riches that lie in Him, that we get to discover when we finally find the way to access that place within us where everything becomes still  as we live in His manifested presence.

Enjoy!

Pablo

Copyright 2011 - Pablo Giacopelli/www.holdingonloosely.com