Walk into the ocean and keep on walking (if you love your life)!

What do people feel, see, or think when, preferably - or mostly per the worship leader’s directive – while standing, with eyes closed, arms in the air and slowly swaying on the music’s rhythm, sing “Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, and my faith will be made stronger”?

The song is versed in the context and image of a lot of water and some serious waves agitating its surface. So we’re talking about a serious volume of water, not to be confused with an average ornamental pond that one might encounter in some backyards.

In my mind I see myself walking into the ocean until the water reaches my lips. The west wind (force 6-7)  pushes up the short and fierce waves. In between each two waves I quickly breathe, panic slowly building up but, through some serious effort and positive self-talk, I maintain this “I’m alright” poise. Heartbeats per minute now over 150. This already is quite frightening let alone when I decide to keep on walking. Keep going. Be brave and just let go for where you lose the ground under your feet the Lord finally gets an opportunity to carry you.

Maybe it’s a contemporary and Christian application of the awfull generalisation “no pain, no gain,” an expression that is used to comfort and encourage those that suffer from (mostly) self-inflicted pain, with the hope and expectation to come out at the other end of that pain more beautiful and attractive. Some factions within theology have adopted No pain, No gain, as truth; we only grow and change after having gone through some serious pain and misfortune,  and buttress it with some cut out from its context Scripture.[1]

AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam

Whenever this song is sung (very often) I cannot help but see the image of a desperate father and/or mother having to give up their child to death as a result of some horrible disease, malnutrition or whatever cursed cause.
Or I see a, for whatever reason tormented soul that wonders how much longer it can cope with life, barely standing up straight there where the water meets the sand.

It just doesn’t sync with my experience of the (greater) reality that we’re part of in this world. I can’t say, nor sing these words and instead will use it as an opportunity to quietly pray for all those that can’t hum or sing along as their pain is to great or their questions to big.

No, it’s a typical song that is sung by a reasonably affluent audience out of the plush of the comfortable theatre seat. Well fed, (almost) all ducks in life’s row and yet slightly unhappy with their spiritual state of mind and soul. There’s got to be more; maybe the depth of the sea will have the answer and will finally get me what I’m after.

This kind of depth, as advocated in the song, we don’t have to deliberately seek or ask for. It happens upon us as an unwelcome, malignant intruder. Some don’t and won’t survive these depths. It’s not their or God’s fault. It happens.
May God have and show mercy on all those that find themselves involuntarily in those depths.

In response to Oceans, Hillsong United. Here a link to an especially spectacular beautiful  version (I love a good piece of music and that’s what this). Pay attention to the smooth sliding chords and the build up to the climax.

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[1] For instance 1 Peter 1:6-7  In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Or

Isiah 43:2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.