There’s a Fountain Flowing…
In today’s post, I recall how the words of a children’s Sunday School chorus have remained pertinent through many decades.
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.”
Ephesians 3:17b-18 (NIV)
One of the favorite songs I learned in Sunday School as a child was a simple little chorus that goes,
Deep and wide,
Deep and wide.
There’s a fountain flowing
deep and wide (x2).
It was written by Sidney Cox, a major in the Salvation Army, and has been sung by children all over the world. (Following this post is a copy of the song, including all three verses as it first appeared in the Salvation Army’s publication War Cry, which I located here.
The refrain of Cox’s song has stayed with me in both deep and wide ways over many years of my spiritual journey.
For instance, almost seven years ago, I participated in an educational pilgrimage to Spain. Our group spent four days in a prayer retreat at the Manresa Jesuit Retreat House. I will always remember the lilting Spanish accent of Father Javier Maloni, anthropologist, theologian, and retreat leader, speak of prayer as a spiritual process in which we go deeper and wider.
Then, about three years ago, I began praying with my friend for her adult daughter who became addicted to prescription drugs. The daughter’s addiction is “deep,” and has resulted in “wide” pain and destruction.
After a few weeks of praying for her daughter, I felt like God was bringing other women with broken stories to my heart. Today, almost every day, I intercede for these eleven women to God who I believe loves and values them. To God who understands and cares about the deep pain their souls lug around and the wide swaths of destruction their choices have left.
I wish I could report that during these three years, I’ve received many victorious reports, but that isn’t the case. Should I feel disillusioned or doubt the effectiveness of my prayers? I’ve wondered. But the reality is that month after month, I have discovered a grace-filled resolve to persevere in prayer, to keep asking that these precious and battered souls will catch a glimpse of God’s tender, merciful love and will discover ways through individual storms with devastating consequences.
In the process of intercession, I am aware my trust in prayer’s value keeps going deeper, and my faith in God’s sovereign, mysterious, often unseen, fountain of love, keeps flowing wider.
May the realization of God’s great love flow deeply in your soul today,
Note: Today’s photo is the magnificent Trevi Fountain in Rome.
