Let us play with the Love of God

18Jul
As a deer pants for streams of water, so pants my soul for you, O God
   My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God; 
 when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?
My tears have been my food day and night, 
while all day long they say to me,
"Where now is your God?"
   One deep calls to another in the noise of your cataracts; 
   all your rapids and floods have gone over me.
The Lord grants his loving-kindness in the daytime; 
in the night season his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
 -Psalm 42:1-3,6,9


Long before I was a student of Scripture, before I tried to conduct a fulfilled, Godly life on my own nickel; I relied on the safety and the wise counsel of a father who had clear opinions about how to rear three boys to become men. Our parents protected us by teaching us.

 

One of our father’s non-negotiables was that we all be accomplished ocean swimmers. Accordingly, many of our adventuresome family vacations brought us ocean-side. None more vividly than our trip in 1960 to a small Mexican fishing town called Puerto Vallarta. Yes, that one; but before the film, Night of the Iguana brought American Hollywood banality to the Mexican Pacific Coast.

 

We chartered a small sport-fishing boat to take us on a day trip up the coast to explore the pristine beaches left after primeval jungle cliffs crashed into the ocean. In mid-afternoon the boat’s engine died. We were thirty yards off a wilderness beach. To keep from being driven into the surf the boat’s skipper set the anchor. There we waited for other boaters to pass so we could solicit help. There were none. The predicament was unsettling.

 

Our father decided this was an opportunity to invite adventure and polish our ocean swimming skills. We lowered ourselves into the heaving ocean to swim to the beach. The water was deep aquamarine blue. We could not see what dangers lurked in the depths. The sound of the surf was thunderous. Our fear confused the swimming skills we had been taught. Our father spoke calmly to us. He encouraged us to play with the ocean, to swim out of joy and not fear. He coached us to feel the saltwater lifting us, to ride the surf, not fight it. I remember father saying “Boys, the ocean wants to deliver us safely to the beach, but how we get there is the ocean’s choice. Listen to the ocean and let’s ride on the ocean’s good will!”

 

I lived to tell the story. I lived to hear the deeper truth of our father’s words in Psalm 42 and throughout Christian teaching. “Fear not.” Like the waves off Las Animas beach, like the rapids of the upper Jordan river, like life’s moments of calamity; the floods of peril arrive one after another and swamp us. Yet in the night, God’s Song is with us. Our lives are a prayer with the God of our Life. Let us play with the Love of God.

Musical Reflection - As the Deer - Juan Karlos Labaijo


God of the great flood, we forget you are present in the floods; they are your floods. Help us to accept that which we see as smothering calamity, is indeed, opportunity for the adventure of continuous improvement and a cup of your love to quench our thirst for your presence in our lives. Amen.

Mentor

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