I remember the first time I learned how to swim. It was about twenty some odd years ago at Virginia Beach and my pops threw me into the deep end of the pool and said, “move your arms and kick your legs and come in this direction.” For some reason, I was able to muster enough flapping to tread water and make it to where I needed to go. I’m writing this Quiet Time now so I’m glad it turned out alright. But I just can’t stop thinking what would have happened if I were too afraid to drown and was too petrified to swim? Would I have been able swim if I didn’t know that my dad was there with me? Maybe. However, the one thing that can’t be denied is that knowing my dad was there provided enough confidence within me to actually swim. Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. – Ezekiel 47:5 Ezekiel, in this passage, is being shown the multiple levels of blessings and favors that flow from God. Essentially there are four levels of blessing and you only receive the level of blessing you are willing to step into. The metaphor here being water as the outpouring of blessings. The lowest level of blessing from God is ankle-deep. You can compare this type of blessing as just getting your feet wet. It is a marginal type of blessing. You will feel God’s presence when your feet are dipped in the water, but you begin to move around and you lose God’s blessing because you’ve taken your foot out of the blessing. Then there is the second level of blessing which comes up knee deep. You can compare this to the first level in that, you can still come out of God’s blessing if you step tall enough. But at the same time, you feel more of his blessing when you are legs are in the water. This is a safe type of blessing because you can still touch the floor and you are relatively free to move about– it’s like being a grown up hanging out in the kiddie pool. The third level of blessing is waist deep. You feel comfortable receiving God’s blessing as long as it only comes waist deep. Again, here you’re still playing on the children’s side of the pool. There is no danger here. You are still in full control of how God’s blessing takes you or doesn’t take you and that’s because the water is only waist deep. At the same time, you’re only getting half the blessings of God on your life. However, you’re probably okay with that because you’re in deep enough to witness God’s power in His blessing and you’re willing to receive some of it, just not all of it. Unfortunately, this is where a lot of us will stay because we feel comfortable with this level of God’s intervention into our lives. I understand why, it’s because you’re not ready to put our whole body in the water of blessing. The fourth level of blessing is where the blessings from God begin to overwhelm a person. It is here where God’s blessings overtake our ability to “play it safe” and allow us to learn to swim in the riches of His blessings. When Ezekiel says this blessing is like “a river that could not be passed through,” he is saying that you can’t touch the floor in this blessing. It completely and consummately submerges your life within it– you can only swim in it. This is the type of blessing that God wants us to jump into. The problem is that we are too afraid of drowning in God’s blessing and losing ourselves. It’s our inability to commit which keeps us from jumping into God’s blessing. Thus, we away discount ourselves from this level of blessing. Self-sabotage is really sad. This morning I pray wherever you are in blessing that you can jump into the deep end of blessings and swim in it. Don’t be afraid to drown in it. Your heavenly Father is there and He has confidence in your ability to swim in His blessings.