The Deep Waters

The novel A River Runs Through It ends with these sentences.  

“. . .but you can love completely without complete understanding." 

Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them. 
Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. 

"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters."

 I think of the big waters as being somewhat like the deep waters of Jesus’ command to Peter. I am sure there are those far more experienced than I at net fishing who could give a number of reasons why the deep waters would be the place to find the fish at this particular time of the day, but that is an article for another time and place. The deep waters are waters that we fish alone with the Spirit of our Lord to guide us. There is a depth to which Christ calls us that we can never attain by standing on the bank with a rod. We must venture out, realizing that Christ calls us to a relationship that is more than a back-slapping buddy one. He calls us to call unto him when the big waters swallow us up, when the swells go over our head, when our feet cannot touch bottom and we have forgotten how to swim. In a paraphrase of the quote above, “We do not have to understand all the ways of God to be totally committed to loving Him and following those ways.” We are not haunted by waters. We are, indeed, washed and baptized by them!

Pastor Craig