From the Deep

Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord! says David in Psalms 130. God must still lead us into the depths, until everything that is derived from ourselves drops away. We must go through bankruptcy after bankruptcy, until everything of ourselves is broken down. During the exodus from Egypt, Israel had to pass through the deep waters of the Red Sea, and before it could enter Canaan, it had to pass through the depths of the river Jordan; and no sooner had it entered the holy land it had to endure the sharp knife, which cut away any remnant they still had in common with the world. The greater the promises, the deeper death must do its work.

Many are afraid of the deep. They have once had to navigate the deep waters of the anguish of their conscience, and so they think they have been through enough. But God has greater depths in store for us. It is precisely the soul that has allowed itself to be led down into the deep that God will lead even further down. Doesn’t Jesus express this when he says: . . . every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Every branch that does not bear fruit He takes away, but He scrutinizes every branch that bears fruit, with a keen eye, and cleanses away the slightest defect and impediment with His pruning knife.

Do not be afraid to go down into the depths, for God is in the depths; God will meet you there, as He says: “I dwell . . . with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit . . .” For this reason, many have no encounter with God, they cannot find God because they do not want to go where God is, there where God is waiting for them: in the deep.

Do not fear descending into the deep, for the glory is in the deep. It was from the depths that David drew out his glorious psalms. Jesus brought forth his glory from the deep, as we read in Phil. 2: “He humbled Himself . . .” Therefore, God also has highly exalted Him. We will only be exalted to the extent that we have humbled ourselves. In this there is a sacred balance: Only as far as the scales go down on one side do they go up on the other side.

Many, who should have been led further on the way, do not understand that further on, means deeper down. Daniel went down into the lions’ den in order to know his God in a way he had not yet known Him, and his friends had to go into the fiery furnace to learn to know the Son of Man. He who walked in the midst of the fire, prevented the fire from consuming anything but their bonds. In the depths, they beheld glories unknown and encountered that which the well-trodden path could never have revealed. This is also what God does with us. He suddenly strips away the stock and value we attributed to our past experiences, as if they were worthless in His eyes. Why is that? God will lead us on, bring us into a new life cycle; and in order that we may reach out for the new, He takes away the old, just as Jesus in John 6, so to speak, drew a line over the disciples’ experiences up until that point: Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” The disciples were in danger of getting stuck in one place and living off past experiences. Many people don’t understand the dispensation of the Lord here and are drawn back to their past experiences. But the Spirit does not lead back to what we have experienced, the Spirit leads us forward. We are not to relive past experiences but rather experience the new.

Many can no longer find God in any other way than in the deep; only here is it still possible to meet God, for outside of this He is no longer to be found. David could only escape the hand of death by descending and saying: “I have sinned . . .” 2 Sam. 12:10.

(From German via Norwegian)