Month: June 2026

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It’s Not the Florida Keys…it’s the Delaware Keys!

When I was in high school I worked a few summers as a lifeguard at a Christian conference center in eastern Pennsylvania. Besides working at the pools, one of the things lifeguards at this place did was guide groups of guests in canoes down a few-mile stretch of a nearby river.

Whenever I went on a canoe run, I traveled light. No room key, no wallet, nothing I wasn’t prepared to go into the water with. Swim trunks, ratty sneakers, life jacket, rescue tube, paddle, and little medical fanny pack. A lot of people going on these trips seemed to think they would stay dry the whole time. Most people didn’t flip their canoe or fall in the water during a canoe run, but it wasn’t uncommon for it to happen. That’s why when we all gathered around to get ready to start a trip, it was kind of part of my routine to size people up and see what kind of personality they were going to be and if they looked like they were prepared to end up in the water.

On one occasion this dude showed up with an enormous key ring clipped to his belt loop. It’s like he was a cross between a janitor and a prison warden. I have no idea why the guy felt like he needed to bring it along on a canoe trip while he was on vacation. Since it was clipped to his belt loop though, I figured it was probably alright. After all, he must be willing to risk it if he was bringing it canoeing, right?

During the course of each canoe trip, we encountered two or three sets of rapids. When I say “rapids,” I’m not talking about huge whitewater, but areas where the water is turbulent. Sometimes the water was very shallow (less than a foot deep), and other times the water was probably waist deep but moving very swiftly and creating eddies and weird currents behind large rocks. In this case the guy with the key ring and whoever else was in the boat with him managed to flip the canoe in a set of very shallow rapids. It happened far enough in front of me that the pair had recovered and were righting the boat by the time I got there, but the guy started to panic when he realized his key ring was no longer attached.

For the people who know me, “compassion” is probably not in the top 10 traits they’d use to describe me, but I can assure you that I was even worse as a teenager. My job was to get these people safely from the start of the canoe run to the end of it. There were canoes from our group downstream who were getting further and further away from us at this point, and I was responsible for their safety, too, so I had to get moving. I rather callously urged the soaked paddlers into their boat so they could get moving again. As they begrudgingly got back in and set off again, it occurred to me that a heavy set of keys like that was probably going to sink pretty fast and not get pushed real far downstream on a rocky bottom. Since I had seen where they tipped over, I had a pretty good idea of where to look. As they paddled away, I took a slower pace, scanning the area for the keys. Yep, there they were. I scooped them up and I think I attached them to the rescue tube laying at the bottom of my boat.

I didn’t let the guy know right away, either. I waited until we were past all the spots where boats were likeliest to flip, then pulled up next to their boat and handed them over. He was hugely relieved, but he probably spent a good 20-30 minutes thinking he’d permanently lost his keys. (I would probably do it a little differently if I were going to do it again.)

Sometimes you’re going to be in a position that allows you to use your experience or knowledge to easily help someone who’s a little out of their depth. The expertise you bring can be such an easy thing to invest, but it can make a huge difference for someone who’s not operating in their natural element. Keep an eye out for the folks you can lend a hand to without even exerting much effort. You might be on the other end of that transaction sometime.

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Your Best is Your Best, Regardless of Scope

Every now and then God will call somebody to do extraordinary things and change the way people think. Many of these people end up being giants of the faith. Charles Spurgeon. Billy Graham. D.L. Moody. Jim Elliott. C.S. Lewis. Joni Eareckson Tada. Some live long, full lives of service, others endure great misfortune that God uses for His glory. God uses all of them for His purposes.

But what about us “normal” people? What about those of us who aren’t going to fill a stadium or hold a revival, or be overseas missionaries?

I’ve got two things to offer for those folks.

The first is that just because you don’t feel like you have a grand purpose right now, that doesn’t mean you never will. Ask for a way you can use your life and your talents to honor the Lord. If you haven’t found a calling and you want one, you should ask for one. Ask every time you pray. Pray for it all the time. Keep praying long enough, and He’ll show you what to do. (Just don’t be surprised when it’s something bigger than you expected, and once that happens don’t be put off by it.)

The second is that even though we can’t all be Billy Grahams, we can be faithful to what God’s asked of us. He asks different things of different people, and somebody else could very well have been called to do something cooler than what you’ve been asked to do. We rarely know ahead of time God’s reasons for doling out tasks the way He does. Some things are little, others are big. The important thing is that when God asks something from you, you endeavor to give Him your best and follow through on it, even if you don’t understand why He would ask it of you.

It’s also important to keep in mind that your role may not be confined to a single function. Your calling could involve one big thing, lots of little things, or something in between. Sometimes the thing God wants from you is surprisingly ordinary. Just show yourself to be reliable. If you can’t be faithful with little things, how can you be trusted with big things? Love God, be faithful, and show love to others, in that order.

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Something To Help Keep Your Head Above Water

I’ve done a lot of extreme/adventure sports in my life, and I’ve purchased thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment over the course of my life. One thing I’ve never had to purchase, but never turned down when offered, is a life jacket.

It’s one of those things you forget is there until you need it. You might even forget what it’s supposed to do until it does it. During my outings I’ve been dumped out of a raft in whitewater, I’ve bailed out of a capsized kayak as I approached a waterfall, I’ve crashed dozens of times while trying to do a barrel roll on a kneeboard, I’ve crashed a canoe in the middle of a set of rapids so I could stop in a hurry to help someone, and once I was even trapped underwater with a tough choice while my boss was truly in a life-threatening scenario mere feet away.

In all of those situations, the lifejacket I was wearing pulled me toward, or kept me at, the surface. Even when I got thrashed around underwater and didn’t know which way was up, the life jacket got me moving in the right direction. As Christians, we need something in our spiritual lives that helps guide us and bring us in the right direction. Practically speaking, it’s a combination of reading the bible consistently, praying regularly, and listening to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. When you’re temporarily disoriented because of the craziness going on around you, those things start pulling you toward the way you’re supposed to go.

One more lifejacket story. In college during the long winter months, it wasn’t practical to go kayaking, so our “Paddle Sports” club held pool sessions twice a week. For those of us who went regularly, there were only so many things you could do in a pool with a kayak before you got bored. In our boredom, a few of us started tossing a diving brick (it was a hard rubber brick that weighed probably 10 pounds or so) into the deepest part of the pool and dove for it. That got boring too, so I put on a life jacket and tried to dive down to get it. The first time I made it a decent portion of the way down, but I had to kick and flail pretty hard to make progress and I didn’t quite get deep enough to get the brick. When I stopped flailing and just relaxed, the life jacket carried me gently but persistently to the surface. It was a neat contrast to be thrashing all your limbs so hard to go one way, then go completely passive and travel so easily to the surface. I was able to dive down to the bottom of the 12 and a half-foot pool and grab the brick, then float gently back to the surface, buoyed by the jacket. This, too, is like the Holy Spirit working in a life that pursues God. Even if you start going the wrong direction, you won’t be confused about it being the wrong way.

And whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.” – Isaiah 30:21

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Early June Iran Update – What’s Going On?

Did you ever see a couple that was fighting about something, but rather than address it head on, they just kind of ignored the issue and left the ball in the other’s court to resolve? Maybe they even made the issue a little worse to increase the pressure on the other partner? That’s sort of what’s going on with Iran.

Americans and Iranians don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. We killed a lot of their leaders and destroyed a lot of their stuff, so it makes perfect sense that they’re not going to be very agreeable to the terms we want them to accept. On the other hand, the Iranian regime is known to be into some pretty bad stuff. They’ve killed Americans. They’ve heavily sponsored terrorist groups. They’ve killed lots of their own people for protesting. I’m going to treat the “who’s right and who’s wrong” aspect of this whole thing as outside the scope of the post, and instead focus on where we are right now.

Going back to the fighting couple, if there’s no clear willingness to move on, outside forces are going to be the thing incentivizing somebody to make the first move. If they’re fighting about an upcoming party, for example, the strategy of not addressing the issue will only work for so long before one of the two gives in and says “okay, we need to make a decision here.” In this case, the one who isn’t in a hurry about the decision probably has a little bit of an advantage because the one trying to solve the problem is probably more anxious about getting it figured out. As a result, the one who’s not in a hurry can have a bit of an upper hand because time is working against the other one.

That’s what’s going on here. Both sides are trying to outlast the other one. They’ll even try to ratchet up the pressure in other areas to make the other side cave first.

Iran’s looking at the U.S. saying “Americans hate high oil prices. All we have to do is incite enough fear and the oil prices will stay high. Maybe we can even draw down their oil reserves. If we can do that, it’s just a matter of time until Trump caves because he knows he’s got mid-terms coming up.” It’s a solid strategy, and is why you’ll see Iran intentionally launch drones or missiles at ships or U.S. installations in the region. A couple of things working against this strategy is that even though U.S. gas prices are elevated much more than they were prior to this military engagement, it is the United States’ ability to export oil that’s keeping its domestic price from going even higher. (It’s not a perfect buffer, but it’s helping.) Additionally, while this would normally play havoc with the stock market, the past decade or so has been so rife with international tension (the word “unprecedented” has been used so much it’s lost its punch) that Wall Street is kind of shrugging this off and expecting things to eventually work out. Last week we set all-time records for the Dow and S&P 500.

The U.S., on the other hand, is looking at Iran and wondering “why haven’t they caved by now?” I don’t know what Trump and his advisors were actually expecting, but they probably thought Iran would have thrown in the towel already. Hats off to the Iranians…they’re tough negotiators. Here’s the tricky part. Both sides want to make it look like they’re willing to consider a deal, but the Americans unquestionably have the upper hand. Just like in poker, however, it’s possible to have a winning hand and still lose if your opponent can outplay you. At this point the actual “cards” held are not what’s driving progress, gamesmanship is. Iran knows it can only last a little while longer before having to agree to a deal on America’s terms. What its leaders are doing is kind of a pattern of appearing willing to deal, but then finding some excuse to lash out and stall. They’re hoping that the President and his advisors get so tired of this uncertainty that they’ll agree to something less than their full list of terms for the sake of saying we got SOME kind of deal to campaign on.

President Trump appears willing to wait them out. Think of the Iranians like an angry child; while they throw tantrums, Trump just needs to be gently persistent, knowing he’s getting closer and closer to the outcome he wants. Adding to the complexity is the fact that the smashed Iranian Government still isn’t fully functioning. The new Ayatollah, if he’s alive and has the use of his faculties, has to prove to the different Iranian groups struggling for power that’s he’s alive and in charge. For anybody over there who’s pushing for peace, there’s probably someone else who’s a hardliner trying to sabotage that peace, and will try to keep drone and missile strikes going. Like the parent of that flipped-out child, we have to be willing to absorb a few hits from them if we think they’re close to giving in. (It would be a much different story if we thought they had plenty of fight in them.)

In the meantime, what’s NOT helpful is all the pundits on TV trying to tell the President how to do his job. My guess is that the Iranians point to this coverage and say “look, even your own media is saying you should give up!” This adds pressure on our own government to rush to a sub-optimal deal. It would be great if news organizations stuck to reporting facts and context and kept their opinions to themselves. Twenty-four hours a day is a lot of air time to fill, and when you don’t have enough material, you fill in the gaps with stuff that’s maybe not so factual. Then people think that because a news organization broadcast it, it must be true (or it’s the majority opinion). Maybe news channels don’t need to operate around the clock.

All that to say, sit tight. Something will happen soon. Senate and Congressional primaries are happening pretty often now, so gas prices and inflation are about to become frequently mentioned issues. Iran’s economy is on the brink and basic utilities (water and electricity) are about to become even more important in the summer and can’t afford to be down for long. The pressure on both sides to make something happen is starting to build. We’ll have some kind of breakthrough soon.