Decompression

There’s no place for you in the deep waters without God. That's not where you were meant to be.

Something has been gnawing at me for months, ever since watching a documentary called “The Deepest Breath.” The documentary is about free diving — diving with no oxygen source (unlike its step-sibling scuba diving which seems much safer!)

Spoiler alert: the story told is tragic.

People freedive for many reasons — to improve their scuba diving acumen, because it’s fairly cheap and requires very little gear, to push themselves, and because they simply love the water.

Like all things in life, however, some people take it too far, and that’s what the documentary is about — the tragic consequences that can happen when we go too far from where we are meant to be and how we were meant to live. (In this case, taking in oxygen!)

So I spent weeks researching free diving and scuba diving to better understand these niche sports/hobbies. As I read more and more, I was hit with the close connection between scuba diving and our walk with God.

This Important Thing Called Decompression

In deep-sea scuba diving, there is a critical action one must take if they are diving more than 130 feet. It’s called decompression.

Decompression is when a diver must stop to allow for nitrogen or helium that has built up in their body during the descent to dissolve. Not doing this causes gas bubbles to form in the tissues, which can lead to potentially life-threatening consequences.

The importance of decompression when we are finding faith again is one I think too many of us forget about!

Sometimes, like free divers, we intentionally drift far from the land — from believing in and trusting in God. There are many reasons for this, and I think they mirror some of the reasons people free dive:

• We want to “test the waters” and explore other things that might bring us meaning and joy.

• We think living outside of faith will be easier.

• We’ve been hurt and we want to flee.

• We are in a rut and believe that there is nothing more for us in this belief structure.

• There are things we simply love more than we love God and we aren’t willing to compromise.

To be clear, the vast majority of free divers would not say they are running away from something — quite the opposite. They are running towards newness, possibility, freedom, courage, exploration.

But free divers and scuba divers alike will always have a sudden death experience: they can only stay far from where they were meant to be for so long. Both will run out of oxygen at some point. Both will have a total breakdown in body and mind if they don’t head home.

Oh Jonah, Why Do You Flee?

Of course you knew I was going to reference this Old Testament story! Maybe you know about the prophet Jonah. The Book of Jonah is a short book of the Bible — just four chapters — and it’s pretty entertaining. Go read it. Then come back.

Here’s the summary: God tells Jonah to head to Ninevah — an awful, pagan city — to tell people about God. But Jonah doesn’t like the people of Ninevah and doesn’t believe they deserve to be saved. So he says no, and ends up in the deep waters.

Well, just as God doesn’t want anyone to perish, he wants to save stubborn Jonah and sends a big fish (maybe a whale, maybe not) to swallow him. This allows Jonah to survive in the deep waters for three days.

In Jonah’s case, he took a free dive because he disagreed with God. Here’s the thing: Jonah being underwater in the belly of a fish wasn’t natural.

Neither was it natural for the prodigal son (see Luke 15) to be far from home, on his own. And what about Adam and Eve, who duped themselves into thinking that they could hide from God, the one who created them and loved them?

There are many reasons we find ourselves far from God — far from our home — and in places where we were not meant to be.

I’m sorry if hurt has brought you to a place of rejecting Jesus.

I’m sorry if disagreements have led you to feel that you no longer “fit” in the family of God.

I’m sorry if you have so many questions that “just have faith” no longer works as a solution to the world’s — and your — real-life problems.

I’m sorry if feel that Christianity is boring or dull or trite or dated.

I’m sorry.

AND… come home.

Because there’s no place for you in the deep waters without God. There’s no place for you in the belly of a fish. There’s no place for you as your oxygen runs out and you feel alone and scared.

That’s not the place for you.

There’s no place for you in the deep waters without God. That’s not the place for you.

The Moments of Coming Back to God

So I want to call you into this critical action of decompression.

How scared the prodigal son must have felt as he came home! But waiting for him was a father who ran, full force, to celebrate his return.

How uncertain Jonah must have been as he finally said yes to God’s call to Ninevah! But the city did turn to God (at least in Jonah’s day!).

How fearful Adam and Eve must have been as they realized God was with them all along! But God clothed them.

Those are the deep seas to the surface. But in between each of these was a moment — a decompression moment where each person needed to be reacclimated from “out there” to “home.”

For each person, I imagine, it was something like a deep breath. It was a decision to say yes. It was a decision to trust and to move towards God, rather than away from God.

When we are far from God and finding faith again, it can take time to fully reacclimate. We still might have questions. We have memories and wounds we carry back with us. We need to find ways new ways to see God in the world and in things we love.

I am reminded of my very favorite Dr. Seuss book, I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew. At the end of the book, after the main character spends the entire narrative trying to run from trouble and find the perfect place, he realizes he can’t get to a perfect place so he heads home, declaring:

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”

I don’t condone violence, but the principle remains: when we head home and back where we were meant to be — with God — things won’t be perfect.

The people of Ninevah eventually did turn away from God again. Sin and death did enter the world.

When we head back to God, we will still have troubles. We will be hurt. We will have questions. We will disagree with others.

But we are no longer in the deep sea without God. We are home, the place we were meant to be.

An Attempt to Sum This Up

So let me encourage you. Stop for a moment and take that deep breath. Go back to where you belong. Trust that as you reemerge to a place of faith that God is there waiting for you, in the broken land of this world and among the broken people of God.

That’s where you belong. That deep sea, far from God, isn’t where you were meant to be at all.

Much love to you,

💚 Laurie