Tag: river

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The Safest Time to Kayak Over Waterfalls is When the Water’s Big

I feel like I’ve had a lot of “20-years later” stories either lately or coming up. (Kayelling, 9/11, attending the 2002 Winter Olympics). Well, Senior year of college was a busy time for me, I guess. Today’s post talks about an event that happened 20 years ago this week.

There’s a creek near where I went to college that had a pair of roughly 6-foot waterfalls that were spaced about 50-100 yards apart. During most of the year, this is a very scenic spot with a water depth of only a few inches, but during the spring rains and snow melt, the creek swells, the current becomes much swifter, and for kayakers, the water gets too big to resist.

Gearing up for a double waterfall!

A 6-foot waterfall doesn’t sound like much. I’m a little over 6 feet tall, so it’s no big deal when I look eye-to-eye with another person the same height as me. It’s a different story when you’re sitting on the floor, looking up at someone that tall. That’s sort of what it’s like when sitting in a kayak and looking at a 6-foot-tall waterfall. I’d been over a four- or five-foot waterfall before and it went very well, but it wasn’t in water this big and it wasn’t in a “must-succeed” situation where a second set of falls lay waiting beyond.

There were three of us going that day. We all slid our boats into the water and allowed ourselves to get a good amount of space between us. Our most experienced paddler went first and demonstrated the line we should follow. As the least experienced kayaker, I went second, and the third guy brought up the rear. I followed the guide’s line, and I hit the first set of falls perfectly. I paddled right over the edge and had a great landing, and it was exhilarating!

On approach to the first waterfall
Quit while you’re ahead

I’m not exactly sure what happened next, but I think I hit some kind of undercurrent I wasn’t expecting, and I flipped over. I can tell you from experience that it’s a very unsettling feeling to be headed toward a waterfall while floating upside down in a capsized kayak.

Even though the creek was swollen to several times its usual size, the water was still only about 18 inches to two feet deep. As I was upside down, my helmet bounced along the bottom of the creek bed. I moved the paddle into position to right myself, but I had to modify the technique because the water was so shallow. I think I was trying to decide whether I should try the technique I’d practiced countless times in the pool, or let go of my paddle and use my hands to try pushing off the bottom to get flipped back up, hoping to catch the paddle again afterward. I didn’t want to risk going over the second set of falls without a paddle, and this wasn’t really the best time to try flipping back over using a method I’d never tried before, so I went the traditional route, but the water was too shallow to make it work the way I’d practiced. I don’t remember how many times if I tried it, but between not knowing how far away the upcoming falls were and confronting a compelling need to breathe, I decided to bail out.

Without question, it was really nice to be able to take a deep breath again, but I still had to contend with some challenges. After dragging my head along the bottom and fighting against the creek bed to try to position my paddle, I figured I wouldn’t have any problem just standing up wherever I was. I faced upstream and got on my knees. My wetsuit stopped above my knees, and I later realized that being pushed along while kneeling on a stone creek bed tears up your shins pretty badly. I got up on one knee, but my sandals couldn’t get any traction. I think I tried on the other knee too, but neither try worked. With my back to the looming falls, I did the only other thing I could think of: I swam as if my life depended on it in a foot and a half of water.

Thankfully, I did NOT take a trip over that second set of falls. I made it to the bank safely and jogged downstream to catch up with the first guy, who recovered my boat and paddle for me.

Ever have something just go in a TOTALLY different direction from what you expected? Don’t let it get you down. Living a life for Christ is going to have moments where you simply feel overwhelmed or inadequate. Then on top of that, experiencing failures only makes it feel worse. I’m certainly thankful there weren’t too many people there to witness this embarrassing situation. My two fellow paddlers were extremely gracious, and they reminded me that outings with the biggest mishaps make for the best stories.

If things had gone according to plan, it would have been an amazing 90 seconds to experience, but it wouldn’t be a very exciting story to pass along. Don’t be afraid to attempt big things in the name of building Christ’s kingdom, but when things don’t work out the way you expect (because God doesn’t follow YOUR plan), learn from the experience and use it to either make the next time different or to benefit someone that reminds you of your unfortunate or inexperienced younger self. You’re not the first one to make mistakes, but maybe you can pass along the wisdom you’ve learned through hard-won experience so others don’t have to make the same mistakes you’ve made.

Lord Jesus, when I look back at all the crazy situations I’ve willingly placed myself in, and how unscathed I came out of them when I should have met with much more serious consequences, it’s clear to me that there’s something after those experiences You wanted me around for, and it reminds me not to waste this life. Help me learn from the past, be bold in following after You, and share the things I’ve learned with others. Also, I don’t know how many guardian angels you’ve assigned to me, but please…thank them and bless them in a special way for me!

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You Change; Your Strategy Should, Too

I’ve written about kneeboarding before; it was one of my favorite things to do during my last summer in college and the summer after that.

There were a few of us that loved kneeboarding and wakeboarding. We’d get together and see what kind of tricks we could start doing. While it was fun to do solo, it kind of lost its thrill after a while. We got the idea to put two kneeboarders out there at a time. Then we tried two kneeboarders and a wakeboarder. We were able to do a lot more stuff that way; jump over each other’s ropes, switch ropes, hang off the same rope, it gave us more options.

At the end of one summer we were able to get four of us going at the same time. It was two kneeboarders, a wakeboarder, and a guy on a round piece of plywood. The attempt didn’t last very long, but it was fun to be able to say we did it.

We had a lot of fun on the river during those summers, but time marched on and we all went our separate ways.

Fast forward 16 years, and I had the opportunity to try kneeboarding at the same place.

Obviously a lot had changed, and I was a little nervous about it. Now I had a wife and three kids, along with less pliable joints, but I didn’t want to pass up the chance to give it a try. It ended up being a lot of fun, at least for a while.

As we got going, I did some stuff to help the muscle memory come back. After getting comfortable, I did a few basic tricks. Getting settled, I started jumping the wake a little bit. It all started coming back.

There were two main differences between kneeboarding as a young guy and kneeboarding as an “old man.” The first was that my workout routine had changed significantly since I had last gone kneeboarding. In my early 20s I lifted smaller weights at higher repetitions to help me have more endurance throughout the day in a physically demanding job. Years later I had switched to heavier weights at lower reps, so my arms had the power to handle more weight for short lengths of time. The second major difference is that, obviously, 16 years of wear and tear makes the joints less able to absorb impacts. These days my joints do a lot more grinding and popping than back when I did a lot of kneeboarding.

This time around I started out by doing the tricks of my old routine, because that was the mindset I was in. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the types of “tools I had in my toolbox” had changed. As it dawned on me that I had more power available to play with, I started getting more aggressive in the way I cut back and forth, how I followed the boat’s turns, and how I approached jumping the wake.

The cartilage degradation became apparent as I became bolder. Stronger arms helped me launch higher into the air upon hitting the wake, but it also set up my knees for higher impacts when I came back down. I didn’t realize it until it was too late. I cut the water hard, hit the wake hard, and pulled hard, and I think I got higher than I had ever jumped before, but I also landed harder than I ever had before. The kneeboard and I bounced off the water, and I immediately lost interest in continuing the run. The board caught an edge and I flipped over, into the water. I limped the rest of that vacation. (I would totally go kneeboarding again though.)

Unquestionably, it was fun up until that point. The lesson I learned that day was to be realistic about the tools you’ve got, and don’t just assume the tools that used to be there will always be available to you. Sixteen years separated my last two kneeboarding runs, and I instinctively began my latest round by assuming I had the same capabilities I had on the one before.

I’m afraid we might do this as Christians, too, sometimes. We all change as the years go by. The reality might be that we’re no longer willing to take the risks we used to take, but we believe we haven’t changed. Once willing to give of our time, talent, and treasure, we might double up on one of them and skip one of the others, even though God’s Kingdom may benefit the most from the thing you’ve backed away from.

Maybe the opposite is true; you may be in a better position right now than you’ve ever been before to give more of all three. Perhaps something that used to be a major struggle for you in your Christian walk is no longer a problem or a temptation for you, and you can now use your experience to help others with the same issue that was once so challenging for you.

If you’re a Christian, ministry might not be your profession, but you’re in the business of ministry somehow. Time waits for nobody, though. You gain and lose abilities. The tools in your toolbox change over time. Your strengths and weaknesses may switch places, and the goal is to adapt and pivot so that you back away from the areas where you’re losing ground and you’re always using your best skills to glorify God. Vigor and energy are here for a short time and can be crucial to getting something started, but a powerful prayer life often escapes young men and women. With life experience comes wisdom that augments the youthful enthusiasm that’s either on its way out or is long gone.  

Learn from the past, but don’t live there. You’re always moving forward. Any given moment in your life is only a snapshot on a timeline. Your life’s experiences have helped lead you to where you are today, and the things you do today will shape your tomorrow. You are on your way to becoming the person you’re going to be. The question is…are you pivoting to your new strengths as your old ones fade?

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You’re Not the First

Here’s a paddler going over a 10+ foot drop

By the start of senior year of college, most students are thinking about their last classes and life beyond their degree. I was thinking about it being my last year to take advantage of all the institution’s adventure sports programs.

I was into kayaking and whitewater rafting at the time. Coming back to college at the end of summer meant that the water in the local creeks and river was still warm. For kayaking, that was nice, but it was also the time of year where the flow rate was the lowest, so a lot of creeks and rivers were either too low or too slow to be enjoyable. Thankfully, we had a solution for that.

Not far from the college was a man-made lake with a concrete dam. The lake provided summer boating opportunities for visitors and residents. Every year, about this time in September, the dam operator dropped the lake’s water level roughly 10-15 feet to kill most of the shallow water algae over the winter. That way the water in these areas the following spring and summer would stay clear of excessive plant growth.

The faculty adviser for the college’s paddle sports club, a guy named Tim, was in touch with the dam operator. The operator was pretty cool about releasing the water in a time and manner that Tim would request. If we wanted a longer, sustained flow, this guy would accommodate us. If we wanted a bigger, shorter burst, he’d make it happen. The two would agree on a schedule for when the release would begin, and prior to that date’s arrival, Tim and a few other people would walk down through the creek bed with chainsaws to clear potential obstacles. It was a custom-ordered whitewater run!

I had only become interested in kayaking the previous academic year. I’m not sure why, but I got it into my head that I wanted to go over a drop in a kayak. A drop is just like it sounds…it’s a sudden change in the elevation of the creek/river bed. It could be a shelf that spans the whole width of the body of water you’re going down, or maybe a formation where one side of the river has a big drop while the other side has a more gradual slope. As it turns out, this run had a drop of probably 4-5 feet right at the beginning…great for a first-time drop. When I got the invite, this is the feature that sold me.

The day arrived and I met up with a few other guys. One of them, a maintenance guy at the college, was named Charlie. Charlie’s hobbies included woodworking and generally “MacGyvering” things. He carved his own wooden kayak paddle. He also fashioned a wooden bumper for his car when it needed to be replaced. His family hosted a number of us for dinner once, and his kids showed off a system of pulleys that allowed them to raise or lower their beds depending on whether they wanted more floor space or to go to bed. Charlie was going to walk me through my first drop.

We drove to the lake, geared up, and carried our boats down to the creek. We put in just downstream of the spillway, and the drop wasn’t far beyond. Charlie had walked me through the process a bit, laying out the mechanics of what needed to happen and the order in which they needed to happen. Much like I had learned years before, it was important to not reduce speed as you approach the drop.

Charlie was going to be the first to do the drop, so I could see where to do it and how to approach it. He worked out a signal with me before he went over the edge. A drop of 4 or 5 feet isn’t that much, but when you’re sitting in a boat that’s barely on top of the water, your eyes are only about two feet off the surface, so it looked much higher. After Charlie went over the edge, I wouldn’t be able to see him. Once he was safely down and he was ready for me to proceed, he’d stick his paddle up in the air and wave it back and forth, and that would be my “green light.”

Deciding that we were both ready, he went for it. He started paddling and kept going, right up until the bow of his boat dropped, his stern popped up out of the water, and he disappeared over the edge. A few seconds followed, and then I saw one end of a hand-carved wooden paddle stick up in the air and start waving around. It was my turn.

I went for it. I started paddling, and got faster as I neared the shelf. As I slid over the ledge, my boat’s bow dipped and for a fraction of a second I was in midair. The bow then sliced deep into the water before the kayak’s buoyancy bounced it back up to the surface. It was easier than I thought, and it was cool!

The thing that made this part of the adventure so easy was that I had someone right there to walk me through it. It was someone who had been through it before, who knew what to expect, and was physically right there to help me in case I got into a jam. In this situation, Charlie mentored me through the challenge successfully, and it was much different than if I had been there by myself and decided to try it and see what happened.

How about you? Do you have a mentor that can help guide you through a situation that’s foreign and scary to you? This life is full of unknowns, but it’s also full of people with lots of experience that you don’t have. Don’t be afraid of taking a shortcut to spare yourself some painful lessons by learning from others’ hard-won experience.

Maybe you’re more like Charlie. You’ve been around the block a few times. You see someone who’s enthusiastic but inexperienced, and it looks like they’re in an awfully big hurry to get themselves hurt or stuck in a bad situation. Why not see if they’re willing to allow you to help channel that enthusiasm into something productive? Don’t do it because you think it’ll make you look good; do it because you can help them.

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Need a Boost?

I used to love going kneeboarding. You kneel on a board and get pulled behind a boat, skimming across the top of the water. It’s not as popular as waterskiing or wakeboarding, but I had a lot of fun doing it.

When I was new to it, it was really cool just to get going and go back and forth across the wake. Then you start doing little tricks, like 360s or riding backwards. Then you start hitting the wake a little harder to get some air. Then you start hitting it really hard to see how far you can jump.

After hitting the wake hard and getting a decent amount of air, somehow I got it into my head that I wanted to pull off a barrel roll. Now that I’m older and wiser, I know that we just didn’t have the right setup to make this trick work, but back then I didn’t know it was impossible. I was willing to try it as many times as I could. Each time I wanted to get just a little closer to making it happen, but there was always a point in the rotation past which I couldn’t go.

I tried dozens of times, but always ended up falling into the water without the board rotating around nearly enough. I even bought a video camera (when such things existed) and had someone in the boat film what was going on so I could try to learn from my mistakes. I have film somewhere of me rolling between 180 and 270 degrees over and over again. I’d land on my head or I’d land on my side, the kneeboard would go flying up into the air, and it never once worked out for me.

What none of us knew at the time is that I couldn’t pull off the roll without mounting the rope at a higher point on the boat. The boat’s pylon – the point where the rope I hung onto was connected to the boat – was fine for waterskiing and even basic kneeboarding, but it simply was not going to allow me to achieve what I wanted to do. The professionals that successfully do these tricks use boats with elevated mounts. That way when the kneeboarders hit the wake and make it into the air, the boat is not only pulling them forward, but slightly upward as well. It’s not a lot, but it helps provide just a little bit of extra hang time that makes a huge difference in the person’s overall ability to perform tricks.

People are like that too. Each person is unique in their own story, but there’s usually a ceiling of some kind that everyone hits. It could be trying to find contentment, get past guilt, grant forgiveness, or even trying to establish a ministry. Whatever it is, people need to be connected to something higher than just the basic level. You hit your limit a lot sooner when you’re doing it on your own, and you need that extra boost that only comes from God.

Work diligently and don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, but remember to ask God for help and to guide your steps in any effort that glorifies Him. When you work hard to complete the assignment God’s given you, He provides that little boost that makes all the difference. He may not provide it exactly when you want it or exactly how you anticipate it, but He gives it to you. It’s the thing that makes a huge difference in your overall ability to perform His work.

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Were You AIMING for the Bridge? (Part 2 of 2)

The arrow is pointing at the pillar where the canoe got pinned.

(View Part 1 here.)

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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Were You AIMING for the Bridge? (Part 1 of 2)

Lots of rain that week…

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!

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Tomorrow Might Never Come

Picture courtesy of GoogleMaps

I don’t remember if I was 16 or 17 but I worked as a lifeguard a few of my teenaged summers. The Christian conference center where I worked was always very busy in the summer time, so when I wasn’t doing lifeguard or pool stuff, I usually had some other type of work to do.

One morning I sat in an office near the conference center’s front desk, doing data entry for some upcoming summer programs. I heard someone come running in the front door, and breathlessly told the front desk attendant, Kari, that there had been an accident down on the river. On the other side of the Delaware River, right across from us, there was a rope swing. Apparently a pair of guys that had been paddling down the river stopped to play around on the rope, but the rope snapped on one of them while they were mid-swing. According to the guy who came running in, his buddy was conscious, but couldn’t get up. Since there were some people hanging out on the conference center’s dock, the uninjured guy saw them and paddled over to ask for help.

Kari called an ambulance to get them rolling, then came back to where I was. She asked if I could just go see if there was anything I could do to help or if there was anything I could find out.

As I ran across the street and arrived down at the dock, the guy in the boat was just paddling away in his boat, heading back over to his buddy. I asked the people on the dock what was going on, and got the same info I already had. It sounded like the guy in the boat was super panicky, and it wasn’t clear if the injured guy had a hurt ankle or a hurt back. There were no other boats around. A canoe would have been absolutely fantastic at that point, and the conference center’s ski boat would have been even better, but the waterfront equipment wasn’t going to be set out for the day for another half hour or so.

I didn’t know how long it would be before the ambulance arrived. I looked across the river to where the guy was still laying in the water. That was too far to swim. Well…maybe? It was, right? I had never tried it, but that didn’t mean it was too far. I’d been swimming laps in the pool; in fact I swam hundreds of yards most weeks, but I never went more than 25 yards without touching a wall. This was probably only four or five pool lengths. The guy over there might have a broken back, and if his buddy did anything crazy, it could have a lasting impact. Before I knew it, I ran up to the pool and grabbed a big red rescue tube, then ran back down to the river. I was already wearing swim trunks; I kicked off my shoes and took off my shirt. I put the rescue tube’s strap across my chest and waded into the water to start swimming across the river.

No big deal, right? It was the same thing that I did in the pool. Everything went fine at first. I swam with purpose, I was confident I could do it, and the adrenaline gave me a boost. I had swum hundreds of laps in the pool, so I knew to lay as horizontally in the water as possible, even though it felt unnatural, so I could streamline my body and reduce the effort I’d need to expend.

But that was in a nice clear pool, with goggles. There were no lines on the floor here telling me I was going in the right direction. I had to keep picking my head up to check where I was, where my destination was, how fast the current was taking me, and if there were any boats coming. Picking my head up meant my body was more slanted in the water, so I had to work harder to go the same distance. Without goggles, the water kept getting in my eyes and I had to squint or miss half a stroke to wipe my eyes to see again. My feet kept kicking the rescue tube or the strap it was attached to, so I had to modify my kick. The adrenaline burned off, and I was in the middle of the river, getting tired and starting to doubt myself.

I ended up switching strokes for awhile. I didn’t move very fast, but it helped me rest enough to resume my previous stroke. After what seemed like forever, I made it to the other side. I was glad when my feet touched land again and I was able to walk up out of the water to find out what was going on.

It turns out the guy hadn’t broken his back or anything quite so severe, but his leg was probably broken. The river bank was too steep to get him up to the top, especially since he was a bigger guy and I didn’t have any shoes. The rope swing was on the back edge of a field. Any emergency vehicles were probably going to have a rough time finding the dirt road that led to us. I sent the injured guy’s buddy out to the main road to help the ambulance find us, while I stayed with busted-leg guy.

The emergency folks didn’t have all the information they would have liked, so they activated the swift-water rescue team. Now, my hat’s off to volunteer paramedics and river rescue folks, because they never know what they’re going to deal with when they show up to a call. I have to say, though, I was a little amused when a guy in a life jacket, wetsuit, and a helmet tossed a throw-bag (a rope with a weighted end) near us as I sat on the shore of a gently flowing river, wearing only swim trunks, while the water gently lapped our feet.

They got the guy out and loaded him into the ambulance. They patched him up, and I don’t know what happened, but I’m sure he was fine after a few weeks on crutches. Thankfully by the time they were driving off our waterfront equipment was getting set out, and of all people, my dad came idling up to me in the conference center’s ski boat to give me a ride home. I was glad I didn’t have to swim back.

What a crazy story. Where in the world am I going with this? I have three things to elaborate on:

First, no matter who you are, daunting tasks lay before you. Whether it’s the struggle to make it through yet another mundane day or fighting against something that threatens to annihilate your way of life, the choice to either stand on the sidelines and watch or step forward to get your feet wet is up to you. The road will be hard, but things God placed in your pathway previously have helped equip you for the journey.

Secondly, you don’t have to have all the answers in order to be helpful. I was afraid this guy fell off a rope swing and broke his back and that I was going to have to deal with some crazy complicated scenario. I wasn’t an EMT, I was just a teenaged lifeguard that was trained in CPR and first aid. I don’t think I even had a driver’s license yet. If the guy had been in real bad shape, the only thing I had with me was a glorified pool float. I knew more than either of those two other guys did, though. I may not have done anything to save the day, but by deciding to wade into the river, I kept things from getting worse. We’ve all been there. Maybe you see something at work or at church where you know it’s not going to end well, despite the best intentions of the people involved. If you see something they don’t, even if you’re not the expert, consider offering some insight that can keep things from getting worse.

Finally, when God made you, He broke the mold. While we’re all made in His image, you’re not like anybody else on Earth. Think about the things that come naturally to you…the combination of talents, interests, and traits that are unique to you. We’ll call that unique combination your X factor. In this day and age there is an urgent need for people to make use of the X factors God gave them. There is nobody else in the world that possesses the exact same X factor you do. You might be thinking something like “but you don’t understand…I don’t have a position of authority…I don’t even talk with that many people…I’m a nobody.” Let me tell you something: the Bible is full of “nobodys” that chose to get out of the way and let God put their X factor to good use.

Many, if not all, of us have been given opportunities…opportunities to do whatever it is that we’re best at. It’s one of the greatest gifts a person can receive: a chance to do what you were made to do. Incredibly, many of us put it off. “I’ll do it tomorrow,” or even “next week.” What kind of arrogance is it we have when we assume “the same opportunity God is giving me right now will still be there in the morning”? The only thing you have for sure is right now. If God’s been nudging you to do something, what are you waiting for? It’s time to do it right now. Call that person right now. Stop delaying and set your idea in motion right now. Get it done right now. Wade into the water…right now.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. -Philippians 4:13