There’s a story that I have always loved to hear about my
dad. It’s the story about how he
narrowly escaped death off the Pacific Coast back in the late 60’s. My dad had a couple of experiences like
that actually. Experiences that
let us know his time on this earth was all along up to a Greater Being than
himself. Once when he was in
Antarctica for three months, he came close to be being washed over board – no
one was around, and if he had been, no one would have had a clue what happened to
him. Hitting the icy water would
have surely been his end. I would not exist had that been the case.
But, the time of which I speak was when
he was scuba-diving in the Pacific.
The details of where are foggy to me. I don’t think I was yet born at this time either. This was a story that he wouldn’t even
let my mom know until many years later.
My dad was an engineer for the Navy. He inspected dry docks. This took him to many ports all over
the country and even the world.
This particular trip, he was scuba diving, and he got
caught in an extremely strong under current. He’d been
out for awhile already, so his oxygen was in danger of running out. He kept being carried farther and farther
out to sea. In order to get back,
while the current was pulling him out, he had to find something on the bottom
of the sea to hold onto, and he would then grip it with all his might. And when the current was coming back
in, he would crawl his way forward on the bottom of the ocean floor. The current would violently surge out
again, and with all his might he would grip anything he could find to anchor
himself once again, and then, as it momentarily subsided he’d inch his way
toward the shore once again. He
did this over and over again until he finally reached the shore. He was so exhausted from this, he laid
motionless on the beach for almost an hour before he had any strength to move
again.
During the month when my dad passed away last summer, I was
thinking about this story. I could
relate to it. I felt, in a way,
like that was what I was having to do to survive that time in my life. It seemed true to me of the Christian
life. When life is hard, you grip
onto what’s true, and when life is easy, you inch your way toward shore. Isn't that how it works? At the time, I was having to find
something to grip onto while it felt like the current of grief threatened to
carry me out to sea. I think many
of you can relate in your own ways and in your own stories to this feeling.
What I became acutely aware of,
however, was that while I knew God was a strong enough anchor for me to hold
onto, I was not sure I was strong enough to keep holding onto Him.
I felt like I was losing my grip.
And, I was afraid.
That’s when God gave me a beautiful reminder. This picture of my dad inching his way
to shore, grabbing onto anchors, seemed so right. It resonated with the “Pull yourself up by your own
bootstraps” mentality we often mix up with our Christian world view. But, God began to show me that it couldn’t be a more wrong way of
viewing my relationship with Him.
Because if I were to lose my grip, I would not be carried farther out into the abyss.
HE wouldn’t let me. He holds me. He holds you.
While I may let go of Him, He never lets go
of me.
Just as the song that
carried me through that season says,
“Oh, no, You never let go – through the
calm and through the storm
Oh, no, You never let go – every high and every low
Oh, no, You never let go; Lord, You never let go of me.”
Instead of feeling like I needed to just believe my way into
feeling better and relying on myself to inch closer to the shore of well-being,
I began to hear the voice that said,
“Rest”
“Rest in Me”
“You don’t have to carry this on your own”
“You don’t have to keep working so hard to keep it all
together”
Have you ever heard
that when someone is drowning, you can’t physically help them until they stop
striving? They have to come to the
place of giving up before they are savable. I’m always afraid somehow that if I stop striving, I’ll
never start again. But, this time
of giving up is actually what is most essential to living again. When we think it’s up to us to grab
onto Him tight enough so we don’t drift off into the abyss, we never get
to experience the joy and the utter relief of His loving arms completely
holding and supporting us and lifting us out of it.
Whatever you are experiencing or going through, God is
there.
He isn’t just there as an
anchor that you try to hold onto with all your might.
It isn’t up to you to get it right.
He’s holding you.
And, He’s saying,
“Rest in Me".
"I’ve got you".
"I am carrying you to the shore.”
Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NIV)
