Deep calls to deep
Deep calls to deep
There is a haunting line in the psalms that describes the deep journey better than any treatise: deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. The depths of God call out to the depths in us, and something in the soul answers, drawn toward a vastness it cannot fathom. The longing for more of God is not something we manufacture; it is God's own deep summoning ours.
Teresa observed that the soul, once it truly begins to taste God, finds itself drawn further than it ever intended to go. You set out wanting a little more peace, a bit of help, a modest closeness — and discover a pull toward depths you never bargained for, an appetite that grows with every taste, a God who keeps calling you inward past every place you meant to stop.
This is why the longing itself is precious. The restlessness you feel, the sense that there must be more, the dissatisfaction with the shallows — these are not problems to be solved but the voice of the deep calling. For with you is the fountain of life, the psalmist says; in your light we see light. God is an inexhaustible depth, and the ache he has put in you to know him more is the surest sign he is drawing you on.
“Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me.”
— The sons of Korah — Psalm 42:7 (WEB)
Follow the holy restlessness inward — the deep of God calling to the deep in you — rather than numbing the longing for more of him with lesser things.
“For with you is the spring of life. In your light shall we see light.”
We have been trained to read every ache as a malfunction, so the moment the soul grows hungry for more of God we reach for something to switch it off. The interior work is to recognize that hunger for what it is — the pull of an infinite God on the depths he set in you — and to follow it inward instead of silencing it, letting it carry you further into him than you would ever have dared to plan.
This week, when you feel the restless sense that there must be more of God, do not numb it with distraction: name it as his call, and follow it inward — into deeper prayer, deeper seeking — treating the ache as an invitation rather than a problem.
The spirit of the age relabels holy longing as a deficiency to be fixed and offers a thousand lesser fillers to quiet it, until the deep call goes unanswered beneath the noise. Follow that ache inward instead, and it draws you into a God so inexhaustible that you slip steadily beyond the reach of everything that was trying to keep you shallow.
We tend to treat spiritual restlessness as a problem — a sign that something is wrong, an itch to be scratched with the next experience or quieted with distraction. But the deep dissatisfaction with the shallows, the persistent sense that there must be more of God than we have known, is often not a problem at all. It is the deep calling to deep, God's own vastness summoning the depths he made in us.
The soul that follows that call is drawn further than it ever planned to go, because God is an inexhaustible fountain and the appetite for him grows with every taste. The ache is not meant to be numbed; it is meant to be followed inward. So do not despise the holy restlessness in you, or try to medicate it with lesser things. The longing for more of God is the surest evidence that he is drawing you deeper. Where is the deep calling you that you have been trying to quiet?
- Do I treat my spiritual restlessness as a problem to be quieted?
- Could my dissatisfaction with the shallows be the deep calling to deep?
- Where is God drawing me further than I planned to go?
Lord, I keep numbing the restless ache for more of you with lesser things. Teach me it is the deep calling to deep, your vastness summoning the depths in me. Let me follow the longing inward, into the fountain of life, further than I ever planned to go. Amen.