The Shallows (Ps. 90 & Luke 16)

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My quiet time yesterday brought me to Psalm 90 written by Moses in the desert, and it found me again today as I opened my Bible to study Luke 16. I came across a phrase of Sproul’s in his commentary about Luke 16:19 about the shallowness of man’s repentance (at best) and it tumbled the two readings together for me. If you aren’t a poetry reader, feel free to skip past it, but if you want to read it, FIRST read Psalm 90 and Luke 16:19. Then it might make a fraction of sense.

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The Shallows


Once again, I wade through the shallows

Feeling cleaner than I was before I stepped in,

Yet still lacking (without knowing my lack) 

The fulness of repentance,

The bliss of completely turning my back to my sin

Instead of trying to cleanse myself 

And feeling better about it for a little while.


This holding on is not letting me go. 

LORD, be my dwelling place, my home—

Then my back will be to my sin,

And it will no longer be with me but behind.

Turn me back from the dust of the desert of my life

To the living water that flows. Sweep away my yesterdays

In Your flood and my secret sins with them.


Your presence has become my light

Instead of pride, labor, and sorrow.

Help me consider my days are numbered,

And when I fly to You let my heart be full

Of Your truth, Your wisdom, and Your song.

Clean, satisfied, let me be glad I’ve seen Your majesty here

And recognized it. 


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Reading and studying about the Pharisees’ close encounters with Jesus, the Emmanuel, God with us, breaks my heart. The ones who should've recognized Him instantly judged Him wrongly. They proudly trusted in the meaningless things, in their own grasp of the law, their own interpretations of it, their own additions to it, their own ability to recognize God, in Moses and Abraham, and they missed Him when He came to visit. (Lord, help us never to trust in anything but You!) But my hopeful heart wants to think that maybe a few of them heard and repented, finally realizing their sin in the light of the truth they had so long clung to without understanding.


Moses saw the shallowness of human repentance in the wilderness as he led the children of Israel to the promised land and time and time again they turned from their sin only to turn back to their own ways when the pain let up and relief came in God’s compassion. Abraham saw the lateness of human repentance in Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus. Both shallow repentance and repentance after death are failures to recognize and grasp an eternity spent with God and have the same result.


Spoul says this in his commentary (on repentance after death) on Luke 16, and it is sobering:


There is no bridge between heaven and hell. That chasm represents the fixed and permanent position of hell. If you are there, you’re there forever. If you have any understanding of the reality of hell, you will crawl on broken glass to the cross to the only One who can bring you safely home for eternity. (436)


To sin means literally to miss the mark, God’s mark of holiness. He is the One who decides what holy is, and he has generously and compassionately revealed this to us and offered us a way to bridge the gap through Jesus’ blood and righteousness. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), yet not all have realized this. Bars and church pews alike are populated with people who have only waded through the shallows of regret and consequence instead of turning their backs to sin and their faces toward God in true repentance. We must do more than just step into the water of repentance and get our feet wet. We must dive into the depths of His love and trust Him to support us even though we’ve no idea to swim.

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