The Shallow End or the Deep End

When you go swimming, which end of the pool do you choose? As a child, no one in my family knew how to swim. While I enjoyed being in the water, I spent most of my time in the shallow end of the pool because I had not learned to swim. My first summer at Boy Scout Camp, I found out that a swimming test was required for placement in the pool. Many of my friends passed with flying colors and went to the deep end. I was a failure and wound up in the shallow end. At that moment I determined that I would never again be in the shallow end of the pool. The rest of that summer I taught myself how to swim. The next year at camp I was in the deep end. Later I earned both the Swimming and Lifesaving merit badges and completed the one-mile swim.

Swimming is only one area where we need to make a choice about the shallow end or the deep end. Education, work habits and skills, selection of reading materials, and development of personal habits and ethics are but a few of the other areas where we must make choices as to the depth or thoroughness that we will go. It is too easy to choose the easy way or shallow end. The deep end requires constant effort and diligence to live and work there throughout life.

It would be so great if just wanting to excel or improve the various elements of our lives was all that was required. But to move from shallowness to depth requires daily work and effort. A brilliant surgeon didn't reach that status by skipping class and ignoring the reading and lectures that lead to long hours of practice and training. A professional golfer didn't get to play in the Masters by occasionally playing a round of golf. He might hit 500 golf balls a day just to get the rhythm of his swing fixed in place. An artist may have painted over a canvas multiple times just learning how to blend the colors and to gain perspective regarding the details in her paintings. Whether a person's profession is medicine, plumbing, construction, or cleaning, to reach the deep end - to meet the highest standards - to increase their business - requires hard work, revisions, practice, and endless hours with one's proverbial nose to the grindstone.

Living the life that God desires for us and that is outlined through the pages of the Bible doesn't come easy either. We all struggle to find consistency in our following and obeying the commandments and instructions that God provides for us in His Word and that Jesus demonstrated for us during His earthly ministry.

So, as a Christ follower, what do I need to do to start a move from the shallow end of my faith walk toward the deeper end of faith and service. Two verses of scripture come to mind that seem practical and yet very challenging. Consider these - one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament.

"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord

require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and

to walk humbly with your God?"

Micah 6:8 ESV

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one

another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."

John 13:34 ESV

When I started this blog and created the website to house it, I based it on two references. One is Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" in which he makes the point that the road less traveled makes all the difference. The second is from Matthew 7:13-14 in which Jesus speaks of a wide road that is easy but leads to destruction and a narrow road that is hard but leads to life. Both tie in well with the ease of the shallow end and the difficulty of the deep end. The choice is one that each of us must make at some point in our lives. My purpose in this article and in the entire blog is to encourage us to choose and focus our lives on the less traveled narrow road - the deep end.

This week, how will you evaluate your live in terms of where you are spending your time - in the shallow end or the deep end? God calls us to the deep end. Will we both hear Him and then allow Him to lead us to that deep, meaningful area of life in obedience and service that comes in following Jesus?