Piyanani Obe Wachanaye

Father, diving deep
into the vast ocean of your word,
gaining the cool comfort of relief,
the fires of hatred were washed away
the harshness of life is quenched…

Beside the wicked, base and evil-hearted,
I awaken a fragrance in my heart
your wonders, breaking open deaf ears,
healed the two blind eyes
wetting the proud heart with tears…

The weary, weak body and mind,
the thirst that keeps rising up within,
where in the world am I to go and seek it?
the joy in the heart, and the love,
these are the gift received from you…

This is a hymn in praise of the power of God’s word, the Scriptures, imagined as a vast ocean the believer dives into and comes up changed. The opening image is beautiful, “diving deep into the vast ocean of your word,” and what the diver finds there is healing, “the cool comfort of relief.” The effect is transformation: “the fires of hatred were washed away,” and “the harshness of life is quenched.” God’s word, the song says, cools and calms what is burning and hard in a person.

The second verse turns to what the word does inside and among us. Even “beside the wicked, base and evil-hearted,” it lets the singer “awaken a fragrance in my heart,” keeping something sweet alive in bad company. And it borrows the language of Jesus’ miracles to describe the word’s power over the soul: it breaks “open deaf ears” and heals “blind eyes,” curing the deafness and blindness of the spirit, and it humbles the arrogant, “wetting the proud heart with tears.”

The final verse asks the deepest question and answers it. When the “weary, weak body and mind” are worn out and “the thirst that keeps rising up within” cannot be satisfied, “where in the world am I to go and seek it?” The answer is not a place but a person: “the joy in the heart, and the love, these are the gift received from you.” What the listener is left with is a tribute to the living power of God’s word, an ocean that washes away hatred, opens deaf ears and blind eyes, softens proud hearts, and finally supplies the one thing the restless soul is truly thirsty for, joy and love, given by God himself.