Little kids are a hoot,
man. Mine are all old enough to swim on their own at this point, but it’s fun
to think about when they were younger and the things they’d do at the pool.
As a dad, one of the fun
things to see is the trust your kids place in you. The pool is a place where
the trust you’ve built with your kids becomes most evident. For a kiddo that’s
3 or 4 years old and doesn’t know how to swim yet, it’s a scary thing to walk
to the edge of the pool and jump into water that might be too deep to stand in.
It’s a big deal to jump off the side of the pool into Daddy’s arms! You look at
them and you can almost see the wheels turning. It’s like they’re thinking “Daddy’s
right there, but will he catch me if I jump?”
It’s so fun to stand in
the pool, looking up at them, and say “go ahead, I’ll catch you,” and to see
them think it over. I have three kids, so I’ve seen a few different reactions.
There’s always some hesitation; sometimes it passes quickly and other times it
takes some additional coaxing for them to commit to the jump.
It’s fun to watch their
eyes, too. They look at my outstretched arms, gauging whether or not they think
they can make it. Once they decide they think they can do it, they look me in
the eyes, seeking assurance that I’m focused on them and will be there when
they need me. My next move would be to give them a non-verbal green light.
Sometimes it was a silent nod. Other times it was a big smile. With intense focus, they’d stick
out their little tongue, crouch, and take a flying leap into Daddy’s arms.
It’s a simple, but
beautiful picture. As the father to my children, I cherish that trust that
we’ve developed together. They each placed so much trust in me that each one of
them were willing to step outside their comfort zones to do something beyond
what they could do on their own. Building trust is something that’s done over
time, but can be shattered in an instant. As they each belly-flopped their way
into my arms, it was so fun to join in their celebration with exclamations, smiles,
and laughs. Almost right away they wanted to do it again, and then again. Building
further on that trust, I was able to back farther away from the edge, or move
into deeper water, and they’d be okay with making the leap because they knew.
They knew “it’s okay, he’s got me.”
Your Heavenly Father
takes pleasure in seeing you demonstrate your trust in Him, too. Nothing brings
Him a smile quite like seeing His children trust Him and leap with both feet
into the challenge He’s given to them. Like an earthly father, He coaxes the
child according to what he or she needs. Maybe it’s a silent nod, a big smile,
or in some cases, a push from behind.
Give Him an opportunity to build more trust with you. Summon up your courage and concentration, stick out your tongue, and take that flying leap. He’s got you.
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A few summers in my
teens/early 20s I drove a ski boat at a Christian conference center on the
Delaware River between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The vast majority of the
people I drove came for tubing rides, but every now and then there were people
that wanted to waterski.
If they were
experienced waterskiers, it wasn’t a problem. They knew what to do, I knew how
to drive for it, and it usually worked out pretty well.
On the other hand, it
was much more difficult when beginners gave it a shot. We had a limited
selection of ski sizes, so if the skier was small/light, they usually struggled
to get into a good starting position. Just wrestling with the skis while trying
to stay in the right “crouched” position was usually enough to get both the
skier and the driver frustrated. Add to this the fact that their teacher…me…had
never been successful at waterskiing, and it’s no surprise that I can probably
count on one hand the number of people that were able to ski for the first time
under my tutelage over the course of two or three summers. Sometimes it’s true
what they say: those that can’t do…teach.
If you want to learn
something from someone, you’d expect your instructor…regardless of what they’re
instructing…to be proficient at it, wouldn’t you? I grew up near that
conference center and since I was a kid I’d hung out by the river and heard
lots of different boat drivers describe to beginners how to get up and out of
the water on waterskis. The problem was that I didn’t have any experience doing
it myself, so it was very difficult for me to successfully translate that theoretical
knowledge into something usable for someone else.
In the Christian life we’re supposed to devote ourselves to passionately pursuing Christ. In the twelfth chapter of the book of Mark, someone asked Jesus what the greatest commandment is. He responded in verse 30 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength.” Pursue Christ with everything you’ve got, but while you’re doing it, make sure that the sources you’re learning from, getting excited by, gaining encouragement from, and using to be renewed are credible sources. Some of the enemy’s greatest weapons employ half-truths or sound like they’re religious, but are in fact more misleading and damaging than flat-out lies.
The voices you’re listening to…are they walking the walk, or only talking the talk?
I sat in the van, more
than a little worried. Remnants of a hurricane had swollen the river to a level
that wasn’t safe for recreational canoe usage, which became painfully obvious
on our last canoe run. Earlier in the afternoon another lifeguard and I had
accompanied a group of canoers on our standard trip, but one pair of boaters
somehow managed to broadside a bridge pillar. The current was so strong that it
dumped the boaters and bent the canoe around the pillar. My boss, Allen, and I were
on our way to retrieve the “shipwrecked” canoe, and I was a teenager
that was getting less and less comfortable.
Herb, the director of
the Christian conference center where I worked, was driving us upriver. The
plan was that we’d get into a single canoe, paddle over to the spot where the bent
canoe was still pinned against the bridge pillar, and break it loose. If it was
in good enough shape, one of us would transfer to it and we’d each paddle a
canoe back home. If it was too damaged for that, we’d both remain in the same
canoe and tow the damaged one behind us.
We could see the pinned
canoe from the boat ramp. I buckled my life jacket and climbed into the front
of our canoe. Allen skipped a life jacket, but had a rescue tube (one of those
big red floats that you see pool lifeguards standing around with) wedged under
his seat. We shoved off and right away got swept into the bright brown water’s
swift current.
The river moved so
quickly that we barely had to paddle. As we approached the bridge, we started
paddling backwards to slow ourselves down. We slowed down perfectly, turned so
we were parallel with the pinned canoe, and gently bumped up against it. A
perfect docking.
The problem was the current
was moving so quickly that when it crashed against the bridge pillar and the two
canoes, it pillowed up and created undercurrents that we couldn’t see or
anticipate. Even though we sat completely still in relation to the shore, the
water churned and frothed angrily beneath us as the river pounded the keel
relentlessly. Our boat shuddered, then flipped over, dumping us both upstream.
That water was flowing hard. I didn’t even have time to be
pinned against the canoe; I got dumped in and immediately got swept under the
boat. I was able to get a hand onto the side of the boat, and hung onto it with
one hand, and held the paddle in the other. I was laid out horizontally,
completely underwater, flapping in the current like a flag on a windy day.
I had no idea where
Allen was or what his status was. He had probably safely cleared everything and
was downstream by now, but maybe he had managed to hang on somehow. In the
event that he was still there somewhere, I needed to get into a position where
we could make something happen. I needed to breathe, but if I let go, not only
would I be unable to help Allen with recovering the canoe, but the attempt
would be over because he’d have to abandon the recovery effort and come after
me. Still horizontal underwater, I tried to do a chin-up so I could get my face
out of the water enough to catch a breath and maybe see where Allen was, but
the current was so strong I couldn’t do it. I think I tried again, probably
with both hands this time, but it still wasn’t working. With no choice (and not
knowing how long it would be before the river let me get to the surface), I let
go and got flung into the current, now at the whim of the river.
Honestly, when I
surfaced, I expected to see Allen downriver. When I came up though, I didn’t
see him. I turned and looked upriver, but didn’t see him there, either. I couldn’t
see him anywhere. The only place he could be was still with the canoe, somewhere
underwater.
The current pushed me
into the eddy behind the pillar, but I was about to be carried out of it. Once
I left the eddy, there would be no chance of getting back upstream. Allen was
in the process of drowning about 20 feet away from me; I swam with everything I
had, but I barely got anywhere.
While I was still
fighting to get upstream, he popped through the surface. I found out later that
the strap to the rescue tube wedged under his seat had somehow wrapped around
his leg, so even though he wasn’t hanging onto the canoe at all, the canoe was
hanging onto him. He had been dangling by his knee at the end of a strap,
batted around underwater without any way of getting air. It must’ve been his
guardian angel that shook the rescue tube loose from under his seat.
Just relieved that we
were both alive, my sense of humor returned. While we were still drifting
downstream, I asked him “well, do you want to try again?” Thankfully
he said “uh, no.” We were able to swim to shore and get out of the
water, but we were down another
canoe.
What would’ve happened
if Allen’s rescue tube hadn’t come loose? Could I have made it far enough
upstream to be able to help him at all? If it meant I would exhaust myself, what
should I have done, considering I’d probably still need a good reserve of strength
if we both needed to rely on me to get out of the jam we were still in? Thankfully,
I didn’t have the chance to think of any of this at the time. Allen bobbed to
the surface before I had time to think about it.
This event helped put
things in perspective for me. In this life, there are things you can control
and there are things you can’t. When you can’t handle it, God will take care of
it. If the only way out of a situation is via something that’s beyond you, there’s
only so much you can bring to the table, and you have to rely on Him for the
rest. Life has countless opportunities for you to bear witness to the fact that
you’re not in control as much as you like to think you are. Every day brings
new challenges, and a lot of them need God-sized help to overcome.
It’s important to remember that if God hands you an
assignment that you’re totally confident that you’ll be able to accomplish, the
task just might be too small. By all means do
it, but recognize that if it’s something you can handle on your own, there’s
not much room for God to be glorified. On the other hand, if you get to be part
of something that you could in no way have accomplished on your own, it’s
harder to take the credit for it. I give all the credit to God for shaking
Allen loose and granting us overall safety that day, and pray that recounting
this story glorifies Him further.
(Also, hypothetically,
if you ever find yourself in a similar situation with shipwrecked canoes, don’t
forget to call the local fire/rescue folks and let them know that everyone’s
safe and accounted for. Otherwise, someone will eventually report two canoes
pinned against a bridge, the rescue team will get all kinds of excited, and
then they’ll let you have an earful when they find out what actually happened
and that you didn’t fill them in.)
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This week’s posts took place at roughly this time one July. I got certified as a lifeguard very late in the summer when I was 15, so I didn’t get much experience actually working on duty that year. The next summer was different.
The Christian conference
center where I worked not only had two pools that needed lifeguards, but it
also conducted waterfront activities on the Delaware River. It had a boat that
guests could use for waterskiing and tubing, but it also did a lot of
“canoe runs.” A canoe run was where someone on staff drove guests a
few miles upriver and dropped them off with canoes, along with a lifeguard to
guide the group. This stretch of river was mostly flat, but did have a few sets
of progressively choppier or rougher rapids that helped break up the monotony.
Canoe runs usually occurred four or five days a week, many times twice a day.
As a result, the lifeguards became very familiar with the river and where they
might encounter trouble spots or submerged obstacles. They almost never went
more than a few days without being on the river, except for once each summer.
There’s a week every
summer where the organization’s program offerings change, and it does not offer
any waterfront activities. During this particular summer’s no-river-activities
week, the remnants of a hurricane blew through our area. It rained hard for a
few days that week, swelling streams and tributaries locally and for miles upstream
of us. The water level rose and the current quickened many times over as that
water made its way into the river.
For the first canoe run
of the following week, plenty of people were excited to go. Recognizing that
the river had risen substantially, an extra lifeguard went on this trip. I was
one of them. Things started out uneventfully, but we were still within sight of
the boat ramp when something very unexpected happened.
Here’s the bridge, with the supporting pillars. The one in question is the one right over this guy’s shoulder.
Soon after the put-in
point there’s a bridge that crosses the river. The bridge is built for vehicles,
so its pillars are pretty solid. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I
think the two men in one of the canoes were trying to get past one of the
columns and got surprised by how swift the current was moving. They somehow
ended up slamming broadside into the pillar. The current was so strong that the
impact dumped both people into the river and the force of the water physically
wrapped the canoe around the upstream side of the pillar.
With the current moving
so quickly, everyone else who had not
hit a bridge went flying past the site of the impact. The other lifeguard and I,
still a little stunned that someone had actually run into the only thing they
could have possibly hit, spun our canoe around and began paddling upstream as
hard as we could, but it was all we could do to not lose any further ground to
the current. Just about all of the other canoes did the same thing, but with varying
degrees of success. The two guys that got dumped in the water didn’t quite know
what to do, and were stuck in the eddy downstream of the pillar. Everyone
paddling hard was getting tired, so we had to shout to the guys to start
swimming downstream, out of the eddy, so we could reach them. They did, and we
eventually reached them and placed them in two of the remaining canoes.
This all happened
within sight of where we put the canoes into the water. We still had almost
three miles to go! I started worrying about all kinds of things. “What are
the rapids gonna look like?” “If the current’s moving this fast, is
our whole group going to be able to make land if they all arrive at our
destination at the same time?” “How do I tell my boss I lost a
canoe?”
The rest of the trip
wasn’t nearly as eventful as what I feared. The river was so high that the
rapids no longer existed, and the current moved so quickly that we made it
downstream in record time. It was a struggle at the end, but we were able to
get everyone back on land at the right spot. After counting heads and
accounting for all of the gear (minus one boat and a few paddles), it was time
to go tell the boss.
You might remember Allen from an earlier post. He’s the guy that recruited me into lifeguard training. He was in charge of all the recreational activities, and he was the guy I needed to tell. Allen’s the kind of guy that usually has the same facial expression whether he’s happy, sad, conflicted, ecstatic, flabbergasted, or thinking about a baloney sandwich.
“Dude, Al! We lost
a canoe! These guys hit one of the bridge pillars, the canoe wrapped around it,
they got dumped out, we picked ’em up and made it back, and as far as I know,
the canoe’s still there, stuck on the bridge!”
He just kind of stood
there and blinked at me, digesting what he just heard. He asked me a few
clarification questions, paused to think for a few moments, and then hit me
with:
“Well, let’s go
get it.”
Then it was my turn to
stand there and blink.
I should have protested
more, maybe making more of an attempt to convey the river’s strength. I was
fresh off the situation…I had just been there and seen the power of the
current, and how crazy high the water actually was. Allen knew the conditions
were much different from what they normally were, but he hadn’t been there to
witness the ease with which the river destroyed a canoe. At 16 years old,
though, I wasn’t confident enough to challenge my boss and say “I’ve been
there, I’ve seen it! You’ve gotta believe me!”
There’s a difference
between knowing something with your mind and having experienced that same thing
in person. If you follow Christ, He enables you to do things that you can’t do
without Him. The Bible talks about how we’re supposed to go out and tell the
world about Christ, being bold and taking steps forward when we can’t see
what’s in front of us. It talks about being strong and courageous, and it even
talks about how, if you’re faithful with a few things, you’ll be granted
authority over more resources so you can further demonstrate your faithfulness.
Yet it’s one thing to
read about and say “yeah, I know that, I’ve known that for years” and
quite another to do it. Keeping your keister parked on the couch instead of
being obedient is a loss for Christ’s kingdom. You, as a child of God, need not
fear even when seemingly impossible and daunting obstacles stand before you. If
you know that God will empower His followers to do His work, do you believe
Him? Going a step further, if you know that God has charged you to do something
overwhelming, are you stepping out in faith even when you can’t see what’s in
front of you?
Take the next step.
Step out in faith. He’s going to give you what you need to succeed in His name.
I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. You’ve gotta believe me!
I
won’t be posting on Independence Day, so I’ll do it today and then not again
until next week. Have a safe, enjoyable holiday, and happy birthday, America!
The summer after I graduated high school I worked at
a Christian conference center, where a bunch of teenagers worked on the
organization’s summer staff. One day after work there were a bunch of us just
hanging around with nothing to do. The part of the campus near the staff
quarters and the dining room had a circular decorative fountain outside of it,
but it needed repair and had been drained. All that was left inside it was
nasty rainwater with decaying leaves in it.
We had a guy on staff, Dave, who was very nimble. He
hopped from outside the fountain to the pedestal in the middle, and then hopped
out the other side, making it look easy. Well shoot, I thought that was pretty
cool, so I had to give it a try, too.
It turns out I wasn’t quite as nimble as Dave. I got
to the middle without much trouble, but I couldn’t slow down fast enough to
stay on it. Caught in that awkward spot of “should I try to stop all the way,
or keep going and hop out again?”…I ended up making a leap for the exit. The
problem was that since I had already tried to stop, this wasn’t a full-blown
attempt to reach the other side and I didn’t have enough momentum to do it.
Only the first few inches of my foot landed on the other side, and the full
weight of my body came crashing down on this part of my foot, overextending my
ankle beyond its normal range.
This resulted in a complex injury that was a
combination of a strain, sprain, and possibly even a break (I don’t remember, but
it hurt). I ended up being on crutches a lot that summer.
I had a lot of appointments with an orthopedic
doctor after that. The injury was the sort where it didn’t need a hard cast, it
just needed some immobilization, so he gave me an air cast that I could take on
and off. In one of the earlier visits that summer he told me “once you can
tolerate it, you can start putting some weight on it.” I thought that was great
news, so I grit my teeth and walked out of the office after that appointment
without using my crutches. I went slow and limped a lot, but in my mind the
doctor wouldn’t have said that if I hadn’t been making some good progress.
I’m not sure if it was stubbornness, ego, or if I
was just grossly misguided, but over the next few weeks I ditched the crutches
and got comfortable being uncomfortable (and slow). I got where I needed to go,
I just took a little longer to get there. The next time I went to the doctor,
he seemed a little perplexed why the healing wasn’t progressing as quickly as
he expected. Once he found out about my “grin and bear it” attitude, he set me
straight. I went back on crutches.
It’s amazing
how much better your injuries heal when you give them what they need.
I remember being super excited toward the end of the healing, when I was once
again off crutches. After using my bad leg more or less as a peg leg when I walked,
it felt great when I could once again use muscle in that foot to propel myself
forward, rather than only using it as something to balance on mid-stride while
I waited for my good foot to hit the ground.
It makes me think…what else in life do we do to
sabotage ourselves? By the stubborn actions we take, are we delaying the healing
of some other literal or figurative injury? Are there areas in which we should be
further along than we are at this point? By neglecting a practice of some sort,
how have we shortchanged ourselves? This could be anything from not reading
God’s word on a regular basis to harboring a grudge or bitterness to not taking
the next step to heal a wounded relationship.
Now’s the time. Set aside the ego, stop pretending it’s getting better, and pick up the crutches again. Are you really gaining anything by clinging to a “grin and bear it” attitude? Take that step you know you’re supposed to take. It’s the only way the real healing begins.
