Sitting and looking out on the frothy waves crashing on the rugged shoreline outside the window of our room at an inn in Depoe Bay, Oregon, these old words came to me:
I was sinking deep in sin far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more,
But the master of the sea heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me — now safe am I.
Love lifted me ….
Doug Haney
This led me to ask my wife, Lori, how many hymns could we think of that used some language about the ocean or the sea. Pretty quickly we came up with two more: “Jesus Savior, Pilot Me” and “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” with lines like:
Jesus, Savior, pilot me over life’s tempestuous sea:
unknown waves before me roll, hiding rocks and treach’rous shoals.
Chart and compass come from Thee: Jesus, Savior, pilot me.
Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus — vast, unmeasured, boundless, free —
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
We write and speak what we know, right? All these hymn writers lived near or were familiar with the ocean. James Rowe, author of “Love Lifted Me,” immigrated from Ireland to America in 1890 and, of course, that travel was only possible by ship.
Do these hymns still speak to us today? Are they still relevant for worship?
I’ll offer two thoughts:
First, these hymns bear witness that even in the vastness of the ocean and the unpredictability of the seas a single person matters to the God of the universe.
There are days I believe this wholeheartedly. I do believe the God of the universe numbers the hairs on my head. But there have been other days, when my life or the world around me is so chaotic, that blue-sky belief becomes cloudy.
Let’s be honest: It is much easier to believe with confidence that God cares about me when life is going well and when the world seems predictable and orderly; but belief in divine benevolence can become shaky when life is disordered and we are anxious about the future.
We all have heard the piercing cry of a lost child who has lost sight of their mother or father. Sometimes I am that motherless child.
Second, poetic images can be helpful in either affirming the goodness of God or naming the felt absence of God. One hymn writer compares the profound love of Jesus to the vastness of the ocean. Another recognizes life is a tempestuous sea and there are dangerous things underneath we can’t even see. These images are pliable in the poetry of hymns.
So this leads me to ask: In what ways have I experienced the goodness of God? For these times I give thanks. In what ways do I sometimes feel the absence of God? (Yes, I know the old argument that God didn’t move away from me, I moved away from God. But the operative term here is away. Not close. And while this is all quite subjective and language fails us perhaps a starting point is to grapple with this spectrum of experiencing God.) For these times I pray, “I believe, help thou my unbelief.”
My musings are very much shaped by my own spiritual journey, born out of curiosity about God and a longing for God’s presence. I confess I have felt both the presence and the absence of God in different seasons of life. For today my credo is this: I believe I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (Psalm 27:13).
Doug Haney lives in Rock Hill, S.C., and leads a national network of church musicians called Polyphony. He served churches in Texas, North Carolina and Georgia as minister of music. He currently serves as interim minister of music at First Baptist Church of Asheville, N.C.