THE DEEP END OF THE POOL
Swimming Pool
When I was in high school, we were required to take swimming for PE one semester each year. Every day of those semesters we went to the pool and swam.
As a freshman, I didn't know how to swim and feared the first day in swimming class. Our teacher was seasoned and knew her stuff. For those of us who were not swimmers, she expected just one thing: we had to jump into the deep end of the pool!
I was scared to death. All I could reckon is that if I were drowning, someone would rescue me. So, I finally got up enough nerve and jumped!
Surprisingly, I did not hit bottom which was probably ten to twelve feet deep. I rose to the top of the water and made it to the side of the pool, where I climbed out. Such was my introduction to swimming and it worked!
Living Water
Many Christians are afraid of water---the Living Water. They fear the unseen future and believing God for it. They hang around the shallow end of the pool where the water is knee deep. They stand on the pool bottom or venture to deeper water only by hanging on to the edge of the pool. They NEVER go all the way to the deep end! They NEVER let go.
Not until you have given up wanting to feel 'safe' and are willing to jump into God, depending only on Him for support, can you know the deep relationship with Him that Jesus died and rose again to make possible.
Often God calls us to make a decision that demands absolutely everything from us if we will obey Him. He doesn't force us to decide FOR Him, but if we don't, we forfeit more than we realize---and it means we settle for second or third best with God, not a close, intimate relationship with Him. And, we may never again be given another opportunity to make such a drastic plunge.
When Amaziah was king of Judah (II Chronicles 25), he made an unwise move and hired 100,000 mercenaries from the nation of Israel to complement his national army. God sent a man of God to the king and told him to send the pagan soldiers back to Israel. After all, Israel had forsaken God to worship idols, and God was not with them. Amaziah was troubled because he already had paid those soldiers a good sum of silver to help him. Now it would be as good as wasted.
The man of God gave Amaziah good advice that applies to those willing to jump into the deep end of God, forsaking everything else to do so:
"The LORD has so much more to give you than this."
The silver payments Amaziah lost were not worthy to be compared with what he would gain from God for his obedience. When you give up everything to follow God and Jesus totally, God Himself becomes your treasure in return, one far more valuable beyond measure than any and all you 'gave up.'
How Much Are You Willing To Pay...or Lose?
When the man found a pearl of great price (Matthew 13), he sold everything he owned to fund the purchase price. It cost all he had! A single pearl! All his eggs were in one basket, but what a treasure he possessed. Notice that the pearl cost everything he had. No 'pocket change' rattled in his pocket. But he owned the pearl!
God is that pearl! Are you willing and eager to possess Him or is He too expensive? Too high a price? Joshua admonished the people of Israel thus when they were settling the Promised Land:
"Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve...but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
If you have already given yourself completely to God and jumped into the deep end, you know the freedom deep water gives. But what if a person doesn't take the plunge? What does their future hold? For that answer we look at Amaziah again.
Though Amaziah listened to the man of God and sent the Israelite solders back to Israel, God said this at the start of his Biblical 'biography:'
"He did right in the sight of the LORD, yet not with a whole heart."
Amaziah failed to jump in with both feet. He didn't serve God with one hundred percent of his heart. His heart just wasn't in it. As a result, he went to battle with his army and waged a successful war against Judah's enemy. But that very success went to his head and Amaziah became proud. In addition, he was smitten with the idols worshipped by the very enemies he had just conquered. He brought those same idols back to Judah and began worshipping them instead of God. Think of it. Toward the end of his life, when he could have been enjoying the better things God promised him,he completely forsook God! His divided heart proved to be a traitor! God could have been his fortress, but Amaziah's idols did not protect him:
"From the time that Amaziah turned away from following the LORD they conspired against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish; but they sent after him to Lachish and killed him there."
Furthermore, his son, Uzziah, who succeeded him on the throne at age 16, witnessed his father's idolatry first-hand as he was growing up. As a result, he did not serve God from his whole heart, either, and died a leper.
A Leap of Faith
Are you willing to jump into the deep end of the pool? To put all your eggs into the one basket of faith and fall totally into the ocean of God? If so, you have the wonderful possesstion, the pearl of great price! He is the MUCH MORE promised to Amaziah by the man of God if he willingly would put his complete trust in God. Remember, you can have as much of God as you want. Are you ready to jump into the Living Water, God Himself?
A dear saint of the century past, G.D. Watson, penned the following words. Let them become your experience, too:
O sweet will of God! thou hast girded me 'round,
Like the deep, moving currents that girdle the sea;
With omnipotent love is my poor nature bound,
And this bondage to love sets me perfectly free.
And now I have flung myself recklessly out,
Like a chip on the stream of the Infinite Will;
I pass the rough rocks with a smile and a shout,
And I just let my God His dear purpose fulfill.
Roll on, checkered seasons, bring smiles or bring tears,
My soul sweetly sails on an infinite tide;
I shall soon touch the shores of eternity's years,
And near the white throne of my Savior abide.