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“I have nigh forgotten this image; but now I return again thereto,” says an old writer simply when he wanders a little. I have nigh forgotten the rough water, but now I return again thereto.
There is no question of deliverance from crossing that water. We follow One for whom there was no deliverance. “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, glorify Thy name.” The petition is for deliverance out of and not for deliverance from the crisis of trial. So that the sense appears to be “Bring me safely out of the conflict,” and not simply “Keep me from entering into it”—this interpretation has often brought illumination and peace. With it tallies Rotherham’s rendering of Psalm 55:18, “He hath completely redeemed my soul out of the attack upon me.”
Before we reach the place where such waters must be crossed, there is almost always a private word spoken by the Beloved to the lover. That is the word which will be most assaulted as we stand within sight and sound of that seething, roaring flood. The enemy will fasten upon it, twist it about, belittle it, obscure it, try to undermine our confidence in its integrity, and to wreck our tranquility by making us afraid, but this will put him to flight: I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me.
For “Faith reaches out to what it does not grasp”; it is always saying, “Even now, Even there, Even so.” But I know that even now that which is beyond human hope can be. I know that “even there, in the uttermost places, shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me.” And most tender, most intimate of all, “Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in Thy sight.” And here, as we know, “Even so” means simply “Yes.” “Yes, Father,” yes to everything, to every challenge of faith, to every mystery. And then, before we are aware, we have crossed the waters and they did not overflow us. And we look up, and away beyond, and high above us, like a finger pointing up into the sky, is the summit of a mountain, the mountain—our hearts tell us so—that is set for us to climb.