Deep Calls to Deep.

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers have swept over me.

Psalm 42:7

 

I cried in Ikea today.

It’s amazing what God will show you when you shut down the noise of your surroundings and give Him just a few minutes of focused attention.

The kids had eaten 30 meatballs between the 2 of them and were now “illegally”, but happily, riding in plastic toy bins down the mini-slide in the play area.  With a few minutes of quiet time to spare, I pulled out my Bible and settled in with Luke.  Before I knew it, I was sitting in the middle of the school holiday lunch-time-insanity of an Ikea cafeteria, crying.

Because of it, my head keeps repeating the phrase: “Deep calls to Deep” (Psalm 42:7)

It’s when the Spirit of the living God is calling out to His children.

To You.

To Me.

Sometimes “the deep” within us is fiercely fighting to reach our God while using every last pulsing muscle and arm-stretched clawing hand to find Him.  Other times, it’s waiting with the patience of still water, longing for the wind to come and stir it new again.  But, make no mistake, we were created to cry out from the deep.  When you let go and open yourself up to the things He’s longing to show you, Ikea is just as good a place as any to find yourself on your knees all over again.

Today, I read Luke 22, which recounts the hours leading up to the death of Christ.  Not an unfamiliar passage, but it hit me in an altogether new way.

It’s Peter that shook me out of my daily grind, into the sobering reality of what our life with Christ is ultimately all about.

As the story goes:

It was an intense moment when the disciples learned, at that passover table, one of their own was already forming the betrayal of Jesus.  And Peter, who loved Christ, wanted to defend his devotion.  But when he tried, Jesus replied, “I have prayed for you [Peter], that your faith may not fail.  And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”  Luke 22:32

Peter didn’t understand.  He said, no! “To Prison and To Death!” (22:33).

Yet in just a few short hours he would let Jesus down in the most personal of ways.  Before the rooster crowed, during that next sunrise, he would deny Him.  And, he would do it THREE times.

It’s what Jesus said to Peter, to help prepare him, that is easily overlooked but crucial to understand:

“I have prayed for YOU”:  Jesus loved Peter so very much.  Despite how hard it would be to know betrayal from His own best friend, He knew this night would also nearly break Peter.

“That your faith may not fail”: Jesus understood that Peter would instinctually want to allow this failure to define him.  But who you are on one messed up night is not “WHO YOU ARE” in Christ.  He needed Peter to remember his faith, because he’d need it to be the leader he’d been groomed to become.

“And when you have turned back”:  In other words, when your broken heart has recovered from what you’ve done. And you find the forgiveness and strength…

“Strengthen your brothers”:  Encourage this world to stand strong and get back up when they fail.  Even the best of us will fall short.  My grace will be your cover.

At the end of that long, horrifying night, a rooster crowed and Peter, in his fear, had denied knowing his King 3 times. But that is not the end of this story.  In fact, in my opinion, the denial is only a set-up for the incredible and precious lesson we all need to learn because of it.

What I read in Luke 22:60-62 is reshaping a great deal about how I plan to approach MY KING from here on forward:

“..The rooster crowed. The Lord TURNED AND LOOKED STRAIGHT AT PETER.  Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him…and He went outside and wept bitterly.”

Did you know that?

Jesus turned and looked straight at Peter.  Can you imagine the moment that passed with those eyes?

Jesus Christ was getting ready to face it all.  So much more than my flesh-and-bone fingers can even try to type on this unworthy computer screen.  What can I possibly say that would match what He was feeling?  What He was facing?  But, in that moment, He turned and looked straight at Peter – the “Rock” on which His church would be built.  Those eyes met his to say:

I see you.  I know you.  I KNOW YOU.  I will NOT DENY you.  NEVER.  I will not let YOU go.  And it’s OK, remember, “I have (already) prayed for you.”  I still love you.  I will love you when you screw up, and I will love you when you run to me arms wide open.  You are mine.  And I will always be yours.

When those eyes left his, “Peter cried bitterly”… violently.

My guess is those tears were not entirely out of shame.  Many were also for the reality of the in surpassing beauty there is in having a Lord that stands beside you no matter what.  And many were for his friend, the MESSIAH, who was preparing to die because the world is broken.  Because Peter was broken.

Jesus was within eye shot.  He could have said something.  But that would have blown Peter’s cover.  He’d protected him.  He could have just not looked at all – maybe saving Peter the embarrassment.  But His move was calculated and it’s recorded for us to know.  That eye contact is exactly why Jesus died on a cross that very day.  It’s because He knows we will try and fail.  Try and fail.  TRY AND FAIL.  But His blood.  His grace.  His heart…is for us.

Then, returning to the meatball craziness around me, I asked myself, how can my Savior look at me with His gentle eyes and say, “I know you, Heather.  And it’s OK, because I’m praying for you – with you.  I will not deny you because you have chosen me.  I will not leave you alone… even when you think you deserve it.”?

I gathered the puddle I’d become sitting at that flat-pack Swedish table, picked up my kids, and walked out of Ikea with the “Deep of my spirit” having met the “Deep of His”.

To you, my precious Father, all I can manage to say today is, “I am grateful”.

My deep will have to do the rest.