Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life. (Psalms 42:7, 8) (NIV)
On a beach in the South Pacific, I stare at the clouds. Thirty shades of orange ignite the billows rising from the sea. The sky matures from orange to red so gradually the change is only noticed when I turn away for a time. In the middle of the layered display, way off toward the horizon, one cloud takes center stage. It hums with butterscotch radiance.
What’s in that place of burning light and color? Does the epicenter of that beauty attract angelic songs and twirling seraphim? I wish I could enter the exact location.
High resolution photos of the Sombrero Galaxy reveal a disk of light set against black velvet garnished with diamonds. The galaxy’s center is a mass of light too bright to make out the source. Swirling around the nucleus are 800 billion white suns, looking like so many grains of bleached flour.
What’s in the middle of the 50,000 light-year wide Sombrero Galaxy? I know my body would incinerate, but what would my spirit find in that place where so much creation fills time and space?
From the frothing waves under an emerald waterfall, to the muted serenity of a baby inside the womb, there are places that call to my being.
“Here is the nucleus of life,” they say, “in this seat you can experience the essence of creation.”
These are my “calling places.” They urge me into their core to fathom existence. And yet, they’re unapproachable, viewed only from afar.
We are made for life in the full. Our God wants us to crave life until we force our way past decay, and to his throne. He created us for union with himself and constructed a way, through Christ, to achieve our goal. The “calling places” of the present era serve to remind us that, until we leave the body and unite with God, we are outside of the life that is yet to come.
Prayer: God of my life, from the depths you call me to yourself.