Tag: should have stayed home today

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It’s A Thick Blackness You Can Feel

November in northern Virginia can be a little unpredictable. Some days it’s very cold, other days it’s very mild. The 10-day forecast can vary quite a bit, so it’s a good idea to check in on it frequently.

One morning the temperature got pretty warm and a heavy fog settled over the area. When I say ‘heavy fog,” it’s hard to oversell how thick it was. On this particular morning, I headed into work well before dawn. Between the darkness and the fog, it was a unique experience. I don’t ever recall having been inside a black fog prior to that. It was a little freaky, to be honest with you. The darkness felt oppressive, and almost tangible. I imagine it’s kind of what it felt like during the plague of darkness the Egyptians encountered in Exodus chapter 10.

Well anyway, the usual commute moved a little slower than normal, and it was odd to see tail lights so close, yet still fading into the inky blackness. The route I took that morning involved a descent down a long hill, toward a traffic light at the bottom. I’d done this trip numerous times in the past, and always wanted to be at a certain point down the hill by the time the light turned yellow. That way I knew I had enough time for the next group of cars to get a green light and get through the intersection and still get there in time to take advantage of the left-hand turn arrow that came after that.

It was a strange and unsettling thing to be driving at normal speed, see numerous tail lights in front of me, many (dimmer) headlights in my mirrors, but not be able to see the faithful traffic light at the bottom of the hill.

Here we were, racing headlong into oblivion, and we couldn’t see far enough in front of us to stop if we came upon an unexpected hazard. We all gained a false sense of security in seeing others around us moving at the same speed, doing the same thing we were doing, and we all just kind of figured that since other people were doing it, it’s probably okay.

Well, thankfully I didn’t encounter any sort of hazard that morning, but if a deer had decided to venture across the road at an unfortunate time, I wouldn’t have had the time or space to do much about it.

This is where most non-believers find themselves today. They’re rushing headlong into oblivion, thinking that everything’s going to be okay because they’re in the same boat as a lot of other people. Things worked out fine for me that day, but others aren’t going to fare nearly as well for these people when they stand before the Almighty.

It’s our job to sound the alarm for them. We (Christ followers) formerly stood where they stood, and have escaped the fate they’re still rushing so quickly into: an eternity separated from fellowship with God.

People fill their time with busyness, equating being busy with doing meaningful things, thinking they’ve got plenty of time to think about the more spiritual side of things later, but in reality having no idea how much time they’ve got left to consider such things. The unimportant things of life distract from the central issue of humanity’s existence.

Christians are called to spread the reality of the situation. It’s our job to help wake them up. For their sake, I implore you to use the spiritual gifts you’ve been entrusted with. I’ve heard it said that the Creator of the universe preferred to die than to live without you. The reality is that the same holds true for all the other people out there, too. It’s up to us to let them know, so they can make their own decision.

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Some People Burn Rubber; This Family Flung it

When I was in my early teens I had a buddy named Cameron. If Cameron had a super power, it was anything that had to do with rubber bands. That dude had rubber bands stashed all over the house, and he was a crack shot with them.

The house where he lived had a skylight in the kitchen, and every once in awhile a fly would buzz around in there, looking for a way out. It seemed like he could always take those guys out on the first try. He also used rubber bands to make slingshots out of branches he found that were the right size/shape. If we had Instagram back then, we’d have been on it doing rubber band madness.

I’m not sure how it started, but at one point Cameron and I ignited some kind of playful feud with his dad. I was at their house like, all the time, so he was probably looking for a way to encourage me to spend less time there. I wasn’t quite “Steve Urkel” bad, but Cameron’s dad often referred to me as “the infestation.” He wasn’t too shabby with rubber bands, either, and on more than one occasion I had to dive for cover to try to escape the onslaught of flying rubber.

Again, the details are fuzzy, but one evening we anticipated that his dad was on the prowl and looking to light us up somehow. I’m pretty sure the “Home Alone” movies were fresh in our minds, and our heads were filled with ideas whose effectiveness was portrayed maybe a little too generously in the movies.

The way his house was set up, Cameron and his sister had the only rooms on the second floor, and the only other thing up there was a bathroom. He had sort of a cool setup in his room; the ceilings slanted down to the walls, so the room got shorter as you went away from the middle, but on the other side of the walls there was some storage space where the ceiling got uncomfortably short. It was a pain to get in there if you were the size of an adult, but it was great for us as kids. Our plan was to set up a bunch of alarms and traps out in Cameron’s room, and then let them stand guard while we set up a fort in one of the storage spaces so we could defend ourselves.

I don’t remember everything we set up, but I remember I brought some stuff from my house to help us out. I brought a tape player with a cassette tape cued up to a loud spot in a Michael W. Smith song, and I made a trigger out of a motorized Construx creation. I also know I brought a small chain and a bunch of metal jax. Cameron probably set up some kind of auto-rubber band crossbows aimed at the door. We strung a bunch of rubber bands together (I don’t think I can properly explain just how many rubber bands were in this house; it’s like Cameron asked for bags of rubber bands for his birthday and Christmas, and he got them) but we’d take these strings of rubber bands and pull them tight all across the room, fastening them to different things and making a sort of web. From one of them I hung the little chain, and I put the pile of metal jacks right under it, so if something disturbed the rubber band string that held the chain, it would fall onto the jacks and make a distinctive noise. The chain was barely hanging on to the string, so a false alarm wasn’t out of the question.

That wasn’t the big alarm, though. The big one was the tape player I mentioned. It was connected to a tripline that an intruder would set off, and everyone in the house would the loud guitar from the start of “Goin’ Through the Motions” if tripped. I don’t know what else we set up, but I’m sure there were other traps. Once we finished that, we shut off the lights and went to work in the storage space, rearranging boxes, garbage bags full of stuff, and strategically storing rubber band ammunition in various locations. If Cameron’s dad was coming for us, he’d either have to turn on the lights (giving himself away) or risk running through our field of booby traps.

Well, we were focused on the best way to set up a defense, and busied ourselves with strategy, plans, and fall-back areas. We had it all planned out. “The decoy dives over here while the other guy pops up and nails him from over here! When he pivots to focus on that guy, the decoy army crawls through this makeshift tunnel and hits him from the other side of the pillar! He won’t see it coming! ”

While we were making our grand strategy, we both thought we heard something out in Cameron’s room that sounded a lot like a little chain falling onto metal jacks. We both froze, wondering: 1. if we had actually heard something, 2. if it was a false alarm, and 3. now what?

Before we could do anything, Cameron’s dad burst into the storage space, filling the air with a hail of rubber projectiles. Surprised shrieks filled the room as we dove for cover but still got hit multiple times. There were so many rubber bands in the air at the same time, it’s like the guy had four arms with eight fingers and three thumbs on each hand, and they were all working on delivering stinging hits to the two of us. Well, we couldn’t mount any kind of coherent defense, and it was a massacre. Cameron’s dad shellacked us pretty good, and there was no denying who won that particular engagement.

You may have had a similar experience (in the metaphorical sense, at least). You recognize that you’re exposed to temptation from certain sins, and you’ve taken the precautions that you believe will be effective in keeping you safe. As it turns out, though, either your precautions didn’t work or something else went wrong, and you ended up not being as safe as you thought. Maybe you put your trust somewhere you shouldn’t have. Maybe you blocked a specific website but you found a different one you shouldn’t be visiting, or you stopped talking about people behind their backs, but now you disguise the gossip as a prayer request.

These things happen. You have to constantly check your defenses, taking frequent looks at your life to evaluate where you’re vulnerable. Things change rapidly; don’t rely on old measures that no longer reflect the modern vulnerabilities in your life. Know yourself and know what you have a hard time overcoming, and place countermeasures in your life that enable you to stand up to them. (In some cases, that requires a literal fleeing from the situation.)

Rubber bands can sting, but there are things that sting much worse. Set up the protections you know will help you be more effective in standing up to temptation.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. –Ephesians 6:12-13

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It’s A Good Idea To Have Some Backup

In my younger days I thought it’d be cool to get SCUBA certified, so while I was stationed in coastal Virginia with the Air Force, I found a dive shop and got signed up for the course.

I had been on a few “escorted” dives prior to that, and I enjoyed them, so I figured this would be a fun hobby to get into. The course was split up into sections; we had classwork, pool time, and time in a lake.

The academic work made sense to me, and the pool time was a good warm up as far as familiarization with adjusting equipment and figuring out how to operate underwater. The lake was the part I was looking forward to, though.

When the day finally came, we showed up and went over a few things from class. Then we went over the dive plan and a map of the area where we’d be diving. Finally we paired off into teams of “dive buddies” and suited up.

It was much different from the pool. I didn’t wear a wetsuit; I wore a semi-dry suit, which made me very buoyant. It took just about all the extra weight I owned just to maintain neutral buoyancy. The instructors helped me with a few tricks and some extra weight, and got me ready to go. After we got our equipment situated to our liking, we began the dive.

It started off fine. We followed the plan, moving from one underwater landmark to the next without a problem. Over time though, something started feeling wrong. The buckle holding my air tank in place somehow came loose. The tank began sliding out of place, moving down my back.

Because of where the buckle was located and how the tank was seated, I couldn’t get the leverage or the reach to fix things on my own. My dive buddy was in front of me, and I tapped him on the leg to get his attention. He turned to look, and I pointed over my shoulder at my tank, but I guess what I was trying to communicate wasn’t very obvious. He turned back around and kept swimming according to our dive plan. I grabbed him and pointed again to my tank, making more exaggerated gestures. (It was frustrating being so close to someone without being able to talk to them!)

He finally figured out what I was getting at. I turned my back to him, he slid the tank into the right position and locked the buckle in place. After that I was good to go and we were able to resume the dive according to the original plan.

Sometimes, you just need a buddy. My prayer is that something I write on this blog helps encourage you to step out in faith and use the gifts God’s given you to bring glory to Him. My hope is that the fruit of your efforts goes way beyond anything you thought it would be, but make no mistake: if you attempt to give God glory, you’ll run into opposition. You’re going to get discouraged. You’re going to get knocked down. Having a buddy to help you get back on your feet is a great asset to have.

A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken. –Ecclesiastes 4:12

As you embark on your efforts to employ your God-given gifts and talents, keep your buddy/buddies close, and be quick to lend a hand when they get knocked down, too.

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Let Someone Else Worry About That

Last week our family had the opportunity to travel for Christmas. On the way home from seeing relatives we drove through western and central Pennsylvania. Due to some poor planning on my part, our drive coincided with the first significant wintry storm of the season in that area.

Things weren’t real bad at first; it was mostly rain. After awhile though, the rain started sounding different. It wasn’t water hitting the windshield, it was wet ice, and it started accumulating on the road.

I guess the snow plows were enjoying the holiday

Before long it got bad enough that the tires periodically lost their grip on the pavement and the traction control light frequently flashed on the dashboard while the tires suddenly spun faster and the speedometer spiked. I slowed down, but we started passing lots of accidents where people had spun out or slipped off the road. When it was all said and done, my wife counted at least eight incidents. The local emergency responders got numerous calls, and on two occasions, we stopped for just-happened accidents and stayed with those involved until someone showed up. (In one, I slowed down because I saw a car up ahead on the left side of the road that had spun around and was facing traffic while a woman and her teenage daughter ran across the highway to get to safety; in the other a man and his dog slid off the road in a car, spun around, and ended up in a creek bed in a few inches of water.) It was a harrowing trip for sure, and by the time we got home, I was worn out from focusing so hard for so long.

This guy and his dog were fine, but they were probably stuck there for hours.

That night I wanted to use the day’s events as a teachable moment with my kids. They’ve seen car accidents on the side of the road as we’ve driven past them before, but I think this was the first time they really experienced a drive in rough conditions and saw the fear in peoples’ eyes after their day took an unexpected turn. I don’t think my kids have ever seen me so thankful to have completed a trip safely.

The next day my oldest daughter let me know that she had done some thinking. She was more appreciative of a safe trip, for sure, but she also let me know she realized that she trusted my driving so much that it never even occurred to her that things might not go according to plan. She’s been driving with me her whole life without any major issues, so she didn’t even consider the fact that we, ourselves, could get in an accident.

This was a little sobering for me. (Should I ever let her know I’m not a perfect driver, or should I let her figure that out on her own?) I don’t know if the kids were worried at all about the drive, or if they were, how much. At least one of them, though, didn’t sweat it, because “Dad’s on it.” She had no idea I was white-knuckle driving while she was able to be largely care-free, perfectly at peace knowing that the situation had my full attention.

Now, just so you know, I’m under no illusion that I’m immune from accidents even if I’m paying full attention and my vehicle is perfectly maintained at all times. (They’re called “accidents” for a reason.) It made me think, though, of how wonderful it is that we have Bible verses that encourage us to come to our Savior and give Him our worries.

This is a rough time of year for many folks, for any number of reasons. I want to encourage you to be completely open and honest with God about your worries. Are you anxious? Tell Him why. Do you have doubts about your faith? Let Him know. I don’t know how He’ll work in your life, but I know that solid relationships include openness and honesty.

I hope you had a great Christmas, that you’re excited that Christ came in the flesh to save you, and that you have a blessed New Year! See you in January!

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How Important is Focus?

Starting training in the military is generally a miserable experience. In the Air Force, it’s called Basic Military Training (BMT). If you’re an instructor at BMT, you have to take Americans from all cultural backgrounds and give them a common understanding, giving them the foundation to be a professional warrior, sometimes for people as young as 17.

Before you can build recruits into what you want them to become, you have to tear down what they currently are…individuals with their own sense of self, their own moral compasses, and their own priorities.

On the first day you arrive for BMT, you’re arriving in buses that came from airports, railroad stations, or other bus stations. Everybody’s dressed in their own street clothes. Some men have long hair, some are completely bald, some have mohawks. For the instructors to begin their work of tearing down recruits’ sense of individuality, they largely take the approach of scaring the bejeezus out of everyone.

Almost no instructor speaks in a normal voice. It’s all yelling. If they whisper or speak quietly to you, it’s really bad. You’re taught to stand there, motionless, with a thousand-yard stare. For how long? It doesn’t matter, keep standing there until they tell you to move. That was one of the first lessons they taught us on the first day…there are times when you are not to be distracted, even when you’ve got nothing to do.

The sheer logistics of confirming the identities of hundreds of men and women and verifying that they arrived safely takes a well-oiled machine. They eventually had to start moving us from the parking lot to a spot indoors, so they arranged groups of us in line and we’d wait our turn to shuffle inside.

As the line crept forward and I neared the entrance to the building, there was a large window to the foyer, through which a waiting room was visible. Inside it stood a man dressed in street clothes. I didn’t look at him directly, but he started gently knocking on the window, and from the corner of my eye it looked like he was trying to get the attention of either me or the guy in front of me.

Man, I didn’t want any trouble. Our friendly instructors had just finished telling us not to be distracted. Maybe this guy wanted to tell me my shoelace was untied or my fly was open or something. He kept knocking, but I kept staring at the back of the head of the guy in front of me. That knocking was persistent. Focus, focus, focus! Knock, knock, knock. Just as I was about to look over at him, the guy in front of me turned his head just a little too much to look at the guy, who then got a big smile and then pointed straight at the guy in front of me. Immediately what seemed like a horde of angry instructors descended upon this guy, yelling with red faces and bulging neck veins, reminding the offender that they had just talked about the importance of not losing focus!

I knew it was probably a trap, and I was still about to give in!

I’ll lay it out there in plain terms. As Christians, we’re here for two very simple reasons: 1. know God, and 2. make Him known. While there are countless ways of sharing the news of God’s love with the world, anything that’s taking you off point is a distraction. A word of caution: sometimes you may recognize that a distraction is a trap, but I’d guess more often than not, you’re not going to see it for what it is. Be on guard.

Think Trump will be re-elected? Who’s right, Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, or All Lives Matter? Will COVID-19 and climate change wipe out half the earth’s population by 2030?

See what I mean? It’s easy to allow yourself to be pulled off course. You may have already completely lost sight of what I’ve been writing about. Don’t take your eye off the prize. There will always be distractions, and they’ll come in many shapes and sizes, but they can all be characterized as things that take you off your mission: 1. know God, and 2. make Him known.

And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” – Luke 2:49

Happy Birthday America! You’re not perfect, but neither am I and there’s nowhere I’d rather live!

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Marching in Your Own Direction

You know, the world has been dealing with a lot of serious stuff lately, so here’s an entry that has no point other than to entertain you.

In Air Force Basic Training, you’re part of a “flight” of anywhere between probably 40-60 people. In my particular flight, we probably had 45-50 guys that all showed up from across America and got thrown together to live in two giant rooms for the duration of Basic Training.

In Basic, we had to travel all over the base on foot. Imagine mass-processing people off the street and turning them into professional Airmen. In order to do this on an industrial scale, there are facilities set up exactly for this purpose. Getting clothing issued, haircuts, physical training, vaccinations, eating three times a day, going to medical appointments, getting financial accounts established, talking to counselors about your career choice and their additional requirements…it all needs to happen in an orderly fashion, and the Air Force has become pretty good at it.

To get anywhere, our instructors needed to march us between locations. I hated marching. Flights would march four trainees abreast and the column would extend as far back as it needed in order to include the entire flight. The tallest people would be in the front, decreasing in height the further back you go in the column. As one of the tallest guys in my flight, I was always very near the front of the group anytime we’d be marching anywhere. That’s fine, except you need to be paying close attention to the instructor’s commands to turn left or right, because you’ll have less time to react than if you’re in the back.

I don’t know what it is about Basic Training, but it has a way of making people that are ordinarily smart into…well…people that aren’t smart. Honest, most of the time I’m a smart guy. Put me in Basic Training, though, and I overthink things, question myself, stumble over my words, and agonize over whether I sufficiently folded my socks. Things that are not normally a big deal become obsessions. I hated Basic.

I don’t remember where we were coming from, but one day we were on our way to lunch. It was old hat for us at this point. Our flight usually got “parked” outside the door while we awaited our turn to go in. As we arrived we could see the “parking space” where our instructor was going to put us, but we needed to do a pair of turns to end up there. This is where I almost got myself into trouble.

To end up in our spot, we could either turn left and then right, or right and then left. I’m not sure what happened, but I somehow got it into my head that our instructor told us to turn right, but the flight of trainees had started turning left. I could have just gone along with everyone else, but in my sleep-deprived state I must have decided that no, we were all going to be punished somehow for not paying attention to the instructor’s verbal commands. Well not this guy!

In a rare flash of independent thought at Basic Training, I decided to strike out on my own and break away from the pack. When the entire column of men in my flight turned left, I turned right.

This was an absurd sight. Hopefully there were no cameras that caught this moment. If there were, I imagine it got lots of air time in the instructors’ lounge. I marched at the same cadence as everyone else, but in the opposite direction. Our instructor either didn’t notice or pretended not to see me. He gave the command for the second turn, and I don’t know which direction he said, but I didn’t care anymore, and took the opportunity to start moving back to rejoin the flight. I met back up perfectly with the group and slipped right back into the spot I had just left.

I don’t think anyone ever said anything to me, and to this day I honestly don’t know who was right (though I tend to believe the massive group of people who turned left probably outweighs the single schmuck who turned right and was out there marching around on his own).

I guess it’s true what they say…I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum. Thankfully it didn’t land me in hot water this time!

Hey, don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself. It’s rough out there these days, but things are looking up. Wash your hands and avoid groups of people, but if you think you can make someone smile with something as dumb as a story like this, go for it. We could all use a smile right now.

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How Are You Not Cheating?!

My wife is one of four sisters, and each one of them is married with kids. The four families are spread out across the country, but when we can make it happen, it’s fun to get together.

A few times in the past, after most of the kids go down for the night, the parents have pulled out board games. It usually ends up that the teams get split into husbands vs. wives. The hubbies are able to squeak out wins in some games, but the wives are freakishly dominant when it comes to Pictionary.

I don’t know what it is; maybe all that time spent together as kids developed some kind of shared consciousness or something. It’s actually embarrassing to be on the other team. One of the sisters will be halfway into drawing a stick figure when another one shouts “ooh, ooooh…the Berlin Wall!” “YES! You got it!” Or one of them might draw a circle, and a half second later two of them will simultaneously yell “an apple a day keeps the doctor away!” After that the artist excitedly points at them and shouts “Yes, that’s it!”

Team Hubby just sits there bewildered, looking at the drawing, then at each other. The ladies are either extremely good at cheating and not letting us find out about it, or they benefit from a collection of minds that are on the same wavelength, with a singular focus and common understanding.

Oddly enough, that’s sometimes how Christianity works. I love hearing stories about how God weaves lives together to benefit one or more of them. Believers (and even unbelievers) become answers to urgent prayers. Complete strangers walk up to someone and, prompted only by the Holy Spirit, hand over money that the recipient desperately needed. Collectively, people employ their different spiritual gifts or use their various resources to achieve improbable or unique feats.

At times Christians work together without any earthly coordination. Something from your devotions combines with a “random” song on the radio and something you read (maybe even this blog!) to result in a message that’s being shouted at the hearer.

The hearer asks “what does this mean?” Well, if you’re the one hearing it, you’re the one that’s in the best position to make sense of it. Continue praying and seeking God’s guidance for your life. Not just once or twice more, but each day, multiple times a day, and He will eventually make it clear. Once He does, act on it. It’s your ticket to being a part of the freakishly dominant team.

PS – No, we don’t play Pictionary at family events anymore. The wives see that Team Hubby is getting bent out of shape, so they let us win other stuff and act like we won through our raw talent.

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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!