Day 2: Drowning

My Anxiety by Courtney Huff

Up to My Neck

Do you ever feel like you are drowning? Drowning in worry, sorrow, anger, despair? You are not alone if you feel overwhelmed, suffocated, or even buried by your struggles.

Psalm 69:1-2 says, “Save me, O God, for the floodwaters are up to my neck. Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire; I can’t find a foothold. I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm me.”

Life can be overwhelming. Sometimes we can’t find a foothold to escape the challenges we face, the pain we carry, and the overwhelming floods.

Consider this artwork. In My Anxiety, artist Courtney Huff depicts her “personal struggle with anxiety. . . . feeling like drowning in your own dark thoughts (represented by the black cloth) and the fact that you almost feel as if you’re sinking below the weight of it all even when you’re so close to the surface.”

Can you relate to this feeling of existential dread, “drowning in your own dark thoughts,” and the sense of “sinking below the weight of it all?”
What thoughts are attacking you today?

In Real Danger

Jesus’s disciples had a similar experience. Luke 8:22-25 takes us out on the water in a boat with the disciples and Jesus. Jesus takes a nap while a storm rolls in. Professional fishermen raised on the seaside, these men knew how to sail a boat in heavy weather. Even so, as Luke says, “The boat was filling with water, and they were in real danger.” And where was Jesus?

Sound asleep.

We, too, often try to be capable, independent, weathering life’s storms on our own strength until we find ourselves in real danger.

Can you relate?

So Close to the Surface

Look again at the photograph. The artist writes, “you almost feel as if you’re sinking below the weight of it all even when you’re so close to the surface.”

Water filled the boat when the disciples tried to sail on their own strength. As soon as they asked Jesus for help, He rebuked the weather and calmed the storm. They felt their lives were in peril, but they were so close to the surface.

So are we. Even when our boat is filling with water, and we sense real danger, even when the floodwaters are up to our neck and we can’t find a foothold, God is with us. God isn’t on the other side of the lake, waiting for us to cross safely. God is in the storm with us, waiting for us to ask Him for help. Even when it feels like we’re drowning, we are so close to the surface. God is holding out his hand, offering to pull us to safety.

What storms are you weathering today?
How can you ask God for His help?
Will He lift you out of the mire and calm the storms?
Will you ask Him to?