“They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep” (Psalm 107:23,24).
On the previous post we saw how the deep can yield spiritual tranquility and mental quietness, two constituents often absent from our evangelical milieus. In the present post, I will present another wonder that can be found only in the bowels of the deep. I am referring here to stability, to this mental and spiritual quality that stands in absolute contrast with the tossing referred to in Ephesians 4:14, “… that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine”, and with the transience mentioned in Hosea 6:4, “… your faithfulness is like a morning cloud, and like the early dew it goes away.”
A few words from James
To depart from the superficies is to depart from the mental duality that engenders instability. James had rightly noticed that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways (James 1:8). He compares that man to a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind (James 1:6).
Only when our mind is made up can we stop to vacillate between two opinions as the people of Israel did in the days of Elijah (1 King 18:21). The person who is torn between the world and the Kingdom—standing in doubt in regard to which one he should serve—will surely be tossed as a wave by the circumstances of life. This man will only experience variabilities and volatilities, oscillations and vacillations. This is the fixed lot of the undecided.
Here again the question confronts us: What do we want? The immutability of the deep, or the changeability of the superficies?
God our perfect example
The word “stability” means: not given to change. It infers constancy. As we all know, God is perfectly stable. In Him there is no variation or shadow of turning (James 1:17). On the other hand we Christians are often unstable in doctrines, in commitment, in love or in zeal—just to name a few. It has been said that we are often as spiritual yo-yo, irregular and spasmodic.
The sea
The fact is that stability can be found only in the depths, and our Christian life is too often superficial. The sea exemplifies beautifully the concept. At the surface there are constant changes, there can be tempests, ripples, mighty waves, stillness, foam, ice, and so on. But in its depth it is an entire different story. There is only stillness and the temperature is constant. And it is so because the depth is remote from nearly all efficient causes, and what has caused the depth to be so is a permanent efficient cause, i.e., God Himself.
The soil
The soil offers us a good example as well. At its superficies it can be icy, but also burning. It can be muddy, but also dry. It can be bare, but also covered by vegetation. But in its depth all is stable. The humidity is constant as well as the temperature. That is the reason why the wine producers keep their product in deep caves, for if it would be kept too long at the superficies it would oxidize and turn bad. Wine needs a stable temperature and constant low light.
Likewise, as we read in Luke 6:48, the foundation of a house must be established on the deep rock, there where the rain and the cold cannot affect it. Otherwise it might move and its walls will crack or even get dislocated.
The material and the spiritual
What is true in the material world is also true in the spiritual. To desire a stable Christian life in regard to fervency and zeal while remaining in our comfort zone can only lead us to deception and frustration.
The people we take as examples in the Old or New Testament were all people who had made up their mind. They were, so to speak, absolutists. They desired one thing above all others, not only in speech, mind you, but in the warp and woof of their daily activities. They were all spiritual diggers. The depth was their habitat. They continued when others had quit; prayed while others slept; and resisted temptations when others gave in. They knew how to abound but also how to be abased, how to be full but also how to go hungry. Yet they were men with a nature like ours (James 5:17).
Why to choose mediocrity?
The way to excellence can only be found in the profoundness of His ways. Jacob had rightly understood that the one who is unstable cannot possibly excel. Speaking to Reuben he declared: “Unstable as water, you shall not excel”. The person who realizes how truthful these words are, and acts accordingly, will penetrate into one of the greatest paradoxes the Christian faith offers, namely, that the way up is wrapped in the way down. When Paul writes: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Rom. 11:33), he simply confirms what the psalmist had declared 600 years earlier: “Your thoughts are very deep” (Psalm 92:5).
I have written elsewhere that Christian convictions can only be engendered in the depth. The one who refuses to go beyond the periphery of a dedicated life will be left with mere opinions that will fluctuate at the whims of evangelical fashions.
About morals
Why is it so many evangelical Christians dwell in gray zones, using the Scriptures to justify their amoral practices? I suggest the answer has been given by the apostle Peter:
Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; 15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:14–16).
I must say here that the untaught people Peter refers to could have graduated from three Bible Schools and have their head full of Christian information. But if they had not descended where knowledge is, little of it had they obtained (Rom. 11:33).
The same is true today. The tragedy is that such unlearned and unstable Christians might be put into the ministry, manifesting their instability by twisting the Scriptures with the skill of a master, thus joining those who deceive others with persuasive words (Col. 2:4) and beguile unstable souls at the impulse of their unsettled hearts (2 Pet. 2:14).
May God inspire us to such a degree that the superficies will become to us a nightmare and the shore anathema.
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