| “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” |
| —Matthew 26:38 |
Looking in several dictionaries, I discovered that, traditionally, writers have used the words “whelmed” and “overwhelmed” interchangeably. It doesn’t surprise me that these words began as nautical terms. They describe a boat caught in the precarious position of filling with water, even capsizing. In the Bible, references to seafaring-related activities are nearly as popular as agricultural illustrations.
Many of you will recall the words found in the hymn, The Solid Rock, written by Edward Mote. 1
His oath, His covenant, His blood
support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
Refrain: On Christ the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.
The idea for those words in that hymn come from Psalm 61:2:
When my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
As I read Psalm 65:3, I was struck by the use of the same word when David described the sense of overpowering sadness he felt over sin:
When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions.
In both cases, the one involving extreme emotional need and the one involving deep sin, we need that Rock that is higher than the extremity of our sinking position. Only Jesus can restore our equilibrium.
In his expositional commentary on the Psalms, the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice shares the following story from the life of Charles Haddon Spurgeon: 2
Ships often ran upon the rocks off the coast of England, and mariners were cast in the water and drowned. At times, the mariners would find themselves struggling at the base of high cliffs, knowing they would be safe if they could only get up the steep slippery face of the rocks. But they could not. At one place, according to Spurgeon, a man who lived at the top of one of these cliffs carved stone steps into the rock face so wrecked mariners could climb up. And when the steps became badly worn and impassable over time, someone else added stanchions and a chain railing to help the struggling survivors.
In like manner, God has provided us with the way to overcome our weaknesses through the Rock of Christ. In our times of need, the Holy Spirit will lead us to Christ, so we can call out to Him for help.
Again, as I read the verse in Mark 9:15, I came upon this word “overwhelmed.” Here the word is used to describe the throngs of people who met Jesus when He and His disciples came down the mountain from the Transfiguration.
As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.
What an amazing way to be overwhelmed! Perhaps we need to exchange our sense of overwhelming need with the sense of His overwhelming wonder. When we meditate on God’s wonder-full provision for us in Christ, we realize that, in the drowning circumstances of our lives, Jesus can truly supply everything we need.
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| 1 Mote, Edward. “The Solid Rock.” A hymn in the Public Domain. |
| 2 Boice, James Montgomery. Psalms: An Expositional Commentary – Volume 2. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1998. p. 504. |
