Even In My Abyss

My wife loves the water, and since she was a little girl, her family has been visiting the Fujairah beach every winter. As I became a part of the family, I joined them - watching the water shimmer as the sun met its surface, and how the waves would come together to erupt into its glorious peaks to eventually crash at the shore and display its foamy crowns. I learned to see creation in all its glory - even, how to ride perfectly along the wave and when to brace.

But the waves did not always let us choose, and the water that shimmered at a distance was something entirely different up close. Scripture often speaks of water from a contrasting perspective, depicting chaos and destruction and, every so often, we’d find out why. As the waves came crashing down from their roaring heights, we would get caught underneath them, finding ourselves tumbling about, swept over, and losing all control - to the point that even if you screamed your lungs out, not a soul would catch the echo of your voice.

Psalm 42:7 describes such a feeling,

“Deep calls to deep

in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers

have swept over me.”

As I woke up one morning, unbeknownst to me, I found myself caught underneath such a wave, distraught and in despair. My wife took notice that something was wrong, and placing her hands in mine, she prayed with me. Yet, that feeling persisted – one of being crushed and almost without hope.

This compelled me to do the only thing I knew - crying out to God, asking why I felt so miserable within. And, although my knowledge of God reminded me that his presence is with me, everything in my head seemed to search for a reason to doubt it.

In the hope that sleep would bring a close to the day, I went to bed early that night, only to be awoken a couple of hours later. So, there I was in the middle of the night, on my knees, crying out to the Lord, pleading that he would help me shake off this feeling.

Yet, I heard nothing.

And the feeling? It remained - screaming my lungs out, with not a soul to catch the echo of my voice.

I made my way back to bed, dispirited. Trying to find some sort of comfort, I began to sing to myself verses of a song that I’ve only ever heard others sing, not knowing why it came to me now -

“Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why are you troubled within?”

Looking back, I can only say that, even in my own abyss, my God gave me a song for my heart.

As I woke up the next morning, just like a broken record player, I kept singing the same two lines to myself. And taking my usual space to step into my quiet time before the Lord that morning, I was brought to Psalm 42.

I related to the Psalmist in it all - how he feels like a deer that is parched, having only his tears to eat and drink the entire day. He doubts as to why God no longer seems to be by his side, whether the One whom he calls his Rock, has forgotten about him and is allowing for such agony (Psalm 42:1-3,9-10).

The tension of the Psalmist struck me - how could one feel as though they didn’t even have a sip to quench their thirst, yet at the same time, feel as though they are being clamped down by the waves?

In my reflection that morning, I knew exactly how he felt. The beach had taught me this - the wave doesn’t simply crush you, it totally disorients you, to the point where you no longer know which way is up. You feel pressed down from every side, and yet grasping at nothing; full of water, and yet, totally vacant. Despair has a way of doing both simultaneously - choking you and yet making you feel empty at the same time.

Yet, repeatedly, through all this came the chorus of the song I was only partially familiar with, in verses 5 and 11:

“Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and my God.”

I wonder if, in our lowest moments, we all find that our emotions quickly do away with God’s truth? Do we give despair a megaphone, announcing everything that seems to be going wrong?

The Psalmist, though, shows us another way to respond. Rather than listening to himself, he speaks to himself - questioning his own soul, commanding it to put its hope in God. He preaches the truth to himself against the current: that God is with him, and that praise is still his rightful posture.

I wondered then: how much greater is my hope, living on this side of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ?

How much more, in our days of darkness, despair, and depression, ought we preach the gospel to ourselves: that despite all we may feel, there was one whom the Father did not spare — the man of sorrows, crushed for our iniquities, swept beneath the waves of his wrath. What then can darkness or despair or depression do to those for whom so great a price was paid?

Through Psalm 42, I found myself once again resting in the finished work of Christ.

And with my quiet time drawing to a close, I could sense the Lord's word afresh in my heart that morning -

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

Those tears of anguish that had been running down my cheeks were now replaced with ones of joy, and my immediate response was to run to my wife, hold her, and say…

“I had been singing the song incorrectly the entire time! The feeling inside still remains - but this time, screaming my lungs out, I know every echo of my voice reaches him. Look at the hope we have, just look at the hope we have in our Savior.”

Brothers and sisters, the hope we have in him is not fragile - it is a hope that no wave can sweep away.