“Deep Calls to Deep” — When the Waters Rise, Still He Finds You

Author: Tanner Reuss

“All Your waves and breakers have swept over me…” — Psalm 42:7

There was a time I believed that walking closely with God would make life feel lighter. That if I surrendered enough, prayed enough, stayed near enough, I’d be shielded from the sting of it all. I think many of us live in that illusion—this quiet assumption that intimacy with Christ equals immunity from pain.

But no one warns you how much suffering comes with following Jesus. And I don’t just mean circumstantial hardship. I mean the kind that reshapes you from the inside out—the dying-to-self kind. The slow, sacred ache of carrying a cross you didn’t choose. The sting of obedience when the reward is silence. The weight of endurance when the finish line is nowhere in sight. This path is narrow. And sometimes, it’s steep. And yes—it costs. But here is what I’ve come to understand: the deeper we walk with Jesus, the more we see—suffering is not the exception. It’s the expectation. He told us plainly: “In this world you will have trouble…” (John 16:33).

It’s one thing to know that verse. It’s another thing to live it.

To feel like wave after wave is rolling over you. To wake each morning with a trembling kind of hope—still believing, still staying, even when it hurts. To hold onto faith not because it feels triumphant, but because you’ve tasted truth… and there’s nowhere else to go. Lately, I’ve found myself there. Knee-deep in the weary. Pressed and weathered. And again and again, the Lord has brought me back to Psalm 42. This has long been one of my favorite Psalms—and here’s why: it doesn’t promise escape. It doesn’t offer quick answers. There is no instant gratification in Christ. But what it does offer is presence—the sound of someone else crying out in the deep. Someone else still reaching for God in the silence.

It’s not just poetry. It’s a blueprint.

I believe Psalm 42 shows us that lament is not only allowed—it’s holy. That whatever suffering this world brings, we’re not meant to escape it or numb it, but to be with Him in it. And that’s something I forget far too easily. There have been so many moments in my life when the heaviness pressed in, and instead of bringing it to God, I just wanted to distract myself, to escape. But the enemy thrives in distance. He breeds chaos in distraction. He knows that if he can keep us from turning toward God in our suffering, he can twist the silence into a lie.

“Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls…”

This is not a shallow cry. This is the sound of someone who knows what it is to feel forgotten—and still keeps reaching. Someone who’s lost the sense of God’s nearness—but not the conviction of His goodness. Someone who endures. And isn’t that what faith often looks like? Not triumphant arrival—but long, faithful endurance. Steady, hidden, holy. Psalm 42 reminds me: faith doesn’t always look like dancing on mountaintops. Sometimes, it looks like kneeling in the flood. Sometimes, it looks like tears in the night and resolve in the morning. Sometimes, it sounds like a whisper: “I will yet praise Him.”

That word—yet—it matters.

It’s not denial. It’s defiance. It says: even if the waters rise, I will not curse Him. Even if I don’t understand, I will not turn away. Even if I feel alone, I will keep calling—because I know He hears. Because I know He is. This is the kind of faith that endures to the end—not loud, not showy. But rooted. Quietly courageous. Grounded in a truth that does not shake, even when the earth does. Psalm 42 comforts not by removing the storm, but by reminding me I’m not the only one who’s been here. That I serve a God who sees, even when I feel unseen. That crying out from the deep is still sacred. Still holy. Still heard.

And maybe—just maybe—this is where the real refinement happens.
Not in the clarity, but in the clinging.
Not in the mountaintop, but in the holding on. We were never promised ease.
But we were promised presence.

And that, more than anything, is what keeps me steady.

Deep calls to deep… And even here, God still answers.