“Nothing can move me,
Nothing can move me,
Your joy came in the morning..
Your promise will keep me,
Your word it will lead me,
From death to life..”
Have you ever fallen in a fast flowing river? I have.
When I was a kid I used to go do water sports in the river which ran through the middle of the city. One time my wind sail caught a current of wind and took me out of the safe area, an inlet, or dock where we did our activities, and took me into the main body of water where I immediately felt the strong pull of a massively powerful river. I fell off my board almost immediately and began screaming for help. I realised instantly that although this huge river looked lazy and slow, it was powerful and swollen, had the potential to suck me under and lose me in it’s depths. Fortunately for me, my coach was nearby and got to me before I got carried away. I don’t remember much of this episode because I think I was completely overtaken by fear, but what I do remember was that moment my coach got hold of me and pulled me up onto the safety of the deck, the sheer relief was so enormous, it totally overwhelmed me. The deck was so solid, immovable, safe and still. The complete opposite of how I’d felt in that water – which I had no control over.
Recently I was struck by how I could describe an experience God took me through in my personal life, in the exact same way. I felt like I’d been lifted out of this situation I had no control over, which could have destroyed me, could have taken me to places I would have been lost to, and really had huge power over me. I didn’t even realise that I was screaming for help until I realised that God had rescued me! He heard the cry of my heard without me even needing to utter it. He saw me, saw the danger and grabbed me before it took me away.
Sometimes we don’t realise what God rescued us from, without hindsight. Sometimes we really do reach the depths of despair, and hit rock bottom before God grabs us, we all have different stories, and different experiences of God’s rescue plans, but one thing we all have in common is that immovable place He puts us on. His rock, His peace, His rest, where nothing and no one can move you. Nothing can rob this from you – they can try, but it can never be stolen. It’s His precious gift to us – He sets us on a rock, props us up, dries us off, washes us clean, and as His word says – “Nothing can separate us from Him”.
I’ve found through my rescue experiences that after that initial plucking from imminent danger, we are often plunged into a night of the soul – a time where nothing much happens, we’re left alone with our thoughts, our prayers and our relief that the situation has changed. It’s a time for deep healing, deep restoration and often painful realisations, but after night time, always comes morning. And with the morning comes new mercies, He knows what the soul can bare, what the mind can cope with, and what the heart can carry. His mercies are always towards us, His mercy always triumphs over judgement, and He loves to show His mercy. Even when we deserve to be left to that swirling current and be swept away, He shows His mercy, because that’s who He is.
Only when we have a full realisation of that mercy in the dawn of this new day, that undeserved, and unending mercy that He shows towards us, can our morning truly break, and that joy can burst forth. That joy which wells from places we didn’t know existed, bubbling up from that deep place of relief, is what leads us into understanding His promises for us, that He led us from death, to life. From drowning, to flourishing. From despair to joy.
From this place, nothing can move me.
kehilanews