Going Deeper With God: What It Means to Stop Living in the Shallows

Going Deeper With God: What It Means to Stop Living in the Shallows

A lot of us want more from our faith but keep standing in the same shallow water, wondering why nothing changes. Ezekiel 47 paints a picture of God leading someone deeper and deeper into a river, and it has everything to say about how we grow spiritually and why so many of us stay stuck.

What Does It Mean to Be "Ankle Deep" in Your Faith?

In Ezekiel 47, the Lord leads a man into water that starts at the ankles. There is a leading process here, and it is worth noting that God is the one doing the leading. Ankle deep is not a bad place to be. It is refreshing, calm, and safe. You can see the bottom. There are no sharks in the shallows.

But ankle deep is also a place of control. When the water is only at your feet, you decide the direction. You regulate how much you feel. You stay comfortable.

The problem is not that people start in the shallows. The problem is that many people choose to stay there.

Why Do So Many People Stay in the Shallow End of Their Faith?

Shallow water feels safe. You can see the bottom. You know what is around you. The moment the water rises to your knees, you start to feel the resistance of the current. At waist level, movement becomes difficult. The river is pulling you somewhere and you are not sure you want to go.

That resistance is not a warning sign. It is an invitation.

A lot of people get to that place where they start going deeper with God and they do not like the pressure. They do not like the feeling of being pulled somewhere they did not plan to go. So they back up. They return to the comfortable, familiar shallows where they feel in control.

What Happens When the Water Gets Deep Enough to Swim In?

Notice something in Ezekiel 47. When the water was ankle deep, it was not called a river. Knee deep, still not a river. Waist deep, still not a river. But when it got deep enough to swim in, it became a river that could not be crossed.

That is the point. God is not trying to get you to the other side. He is trying to get you fully immersed in the journey itself. The destination is not a place. It is a depth of relationship.

When you are fully in the river, you stop controlling the direction. The river determines the movement. And that is exactly where God wants you.

What Does "Deep Calls to Deep" Actually Mean?

"Deep calls unto deep" (Psalm 42:7) is not just a poetic phrase. It is a spiritual reality. Deep does not call to shallow. If you are living in the shallows but wanting deep things, wondering why you cannot seem to get them, the environment may be the issue.

You cannot grow beyond the depth of the water you are in. Some environments can only sustain you at a certain size. If God is enlarging you, He may need to deepen the environment around you.

In Luke 5:4, Jesus tells Peter something worth paying attention to. After a long, fruitless night of fishing in familiar waters, Jesus says: "Put out into the deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." - Luke 5:4

Peter's breakthrough did not happen in the water he already knew. It happened when he was willing to go further out. There are catches you will never experience at the depth you have become comfortable with.

Why You Will Never Find the Big Things in Shallow Water

If you have ever gone fishing, you know you do not fish in the shallows. That is not where the big fish live. The same is true spiritually.

When you stay in shallow environments, you end up surrounded by small fish. And when everything around you is small, you start to feel big by comparison. But that feeling is an illusion. You are not growing. You are just shrinking your surroundings so you feel larger than you are.

Small fish cannot handle a big current. If God is trying to move you into something significant, you need to be in water deep enough to carry that kind of life.

The Dead Sea vs. the Sea of Galilee: A Lesson About Receiving and Releasing

Both the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee receive water from the Jordan River. The same water flows into both. Yet one is teeming with life and the other is completely dead.

The only difference is this: the Sea of Galilee releases its water back out. The Dead Sea keeps everything it receives. Nothing flows out. And because of that, the salt content builds up, life cannot survive, and it becomes exactly what its name says it is.

This is a picture of what happens when faith becomes only about receiving. When we come to church just to get enough to survive the week, just to take in something for ourselves, and never pour out, we start to look a lot like the Dead Sea. Full, but lifeless.

Jesus said: "Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." - John 7:38

Living water is meant to flow in and out. When you pour out what is in you, something comes alive. When you step up to serve someone else, share your faith, or show up for another person in their need, your own problems have a way of shrinking. The circumstance may not change, but you do.

What Does Full Surrender to God Actually Look Like?

Baptism is a picture of this. It is not just a ceremony. It is an image of what your life in Christ is meant to look like. Not ankle deep. Not knee deep. Fully immersed.

The word "saved" in the original language is the Greek word sozo. It does not simply mean getting a ticket to heaven. It means complete transformation. Delivered. Set free. Matured. Chains broken. Salvation is not the finish line. It is the beginning of going deeper.

When you are fully in the river, you stop making all the decisions about direction. You go where the river takes you. That is not a loss of freedom. That is the most alive you will ever be.

Why the People With the Most Problems Are Often the Most Shallow

This is a hard truth, but an important one. The people who tend to have the most ongoing turmoil are often the ones who stay in the shallowest places. Everything around them feels bigger because they have not grown large enough to handle it.

King David once fought a lion. Then a bear. By the time Goliath showed up, David was not intimidated. His 500-pound problem became a 500-pound opportunity. That kind of courage is built in the deep places, not the shallow ones.

Staying away from church, community, or spiritual growth because life is hard is like refusing to take medicine because you are sick. The medicine is exactly what you need. You have to move toward it, not away from it.

It Is Okay If You Are Still Wading In

Not everyone cannonballs into the deep end. Some people wade in slowly, inch by inch, letting the water adjust. That is okay. There is no proper timetable for how long it takes you to grow into deeper places.

What matters is the direction you are headed. As long as you are moving toward full surrender, toward deeper waters, toward a life that is both receiving and releasing, you are on the right path.

God is not asking you to have it all figured out. He is asking you to stop fighting the current. Because everyone who has ever fought God and tried to stay in control has only worn themselves out. The river is going somewhere. You might as well let it take you there.

Get Around Deeper People

If you want to grow, get around people who have grown. Stop trying to be the biggest fish in a small pond and start putting yourself in rooms where you feel small again. That feeling of smallness is not a threat. It is an invitation to grow.

Do not wait until you are fully mature to start moving. If you waited until you were perfect to begin, you would start the day you stopped. Get around purposed people. People who know where they are going. Lock arms with those who are chasing a promise and let their momentum pull you forward.

Life Application

This week, identify one area of your life where you have been staying in the shallows because it feels safe. It might be your faith, a relationship, a calling, a business, or a community you have been avoiding because the water feels too deep or too uncertain.

Choose one concrete step to wade in further. That might mean showing up somewhere you have been avoiding, reaching out to someone further along than you, serving in a way that costs you something, or simply telling God out loud that you are done fighting the current.

Ask yourself these questions as you reflect:

• Am I asking God to bless something I am not willing to walk into?

• Am I receiving from God but never releasing? Is my faith active in both directions?

• What is one area where I have been fighting the current instead of surrendering to where God is taking me?

• Are the people around me pulling me deeper, or keeping me comfortable in the shallows?

• When small things knock me off balance, what does that reveal about the depth I am actually living at?

The deep places are not always safe. You cannot always see the bottom. But that is exactly where the life is, where the big catches are, and where God can make something significant out of your story. Stop asking Him to bring the deep things to you. Wade in and go find them.