When I was younger, I loved going to the YMCA pool. That for me marked the real beginning of summer when we’d pack up the station wagon and head over to the East Memphis Y.

Honestly, I was a bit of a scaredy-cat. I stuck to the shallow end where I could see the bottom and where I could stand with my head above water. Forget about me going off the diving board. I was sticking to the kiddie end of the pool.

I’m beginning to see that real faith is when you leave the shallow end and go deep. More accurately, it’s when you find yourself thrown in to deep waters that go over your head. Your circumstances seem hopeless and impossible.

Maybe true faith kicks in when your feet can’t feel the bottom anymore. Maybe that’s when you learn total dependence on God when all your props and crutches get kicked out from underneath you.

Sometimes for me, faith feels close to panic. It’s not a calm soliloquy in the storm but an almost hyperventilated prayer of “Help me, Lord, You’re all I’ve got.”

I stand by my statement that God can and often does give us more than we can handle. He will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to endure but He will absolutely give us circumstances where we’re forced to rely completely on God’s mercy and grace. Either He comes through or we drown.

I’m still not the world’s greatest swimmer, but I don’t mind the deep end as much. When it comes to faith in deeper waters, I’m slowly but surely learning not what great faith in God is worth but what a great God can do with my little bit of faith. Just a tiny mustard seed’s worth can move mountains . . . and keep me afloat.