When I was about 5 years old, my parents took the family one day to the beach. Now, I don’t remember much about being five years old, but I do know that my family couldn’t often get to the beach, so this was a special day.
So anyways, I decided, of course like any normal little kid, that I would wade into the ocean on my own. I remember at one point I decided that I would lean forward, and place my face downward into the water. Funny thing, my feet unexpectedly left the ground. I didn’t know how it happened, it just did. Now I was floating!
But what then happened was this: I didn’t know how to get my feet back on the ground.
Without getting my feet back on the ground, I couldn’t get the leverage to pull my face out of the water. I went back and forth, trying to pull my face up but needing my feet down, then trying to put my feet down but needing my face up.
You can imagine: I couldn’t breathe, I was stuck, I was all alone with no one to help, … and I was scared.
Just then a great hand reached under me and pulled me completely out of the water.
It was my father.
He was there. He was watching. He saved my life.
Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified. He couldn’t breathe on the cross, he was stuck, all alone with no one to help Him off of it. Why? Because He knows His Father is there. He knows His Father is watching. He knows His Father will save Him. The name Jesus means, “God saves.”
God is our Father. Sometimes we wade off in life on our own, getting ourselves into predicaments. We feel stifled, stuck, alone, and scared. But our Father is watching.
“Such as sat in darkness and in the shadow of death: bound in want and in iron. Because they had exasperated the words of God: and provoked the counsel of the most High: And their heart was humbled with labours: they were weakened, and their was none to help them. Then they cried to the Lord in their affliction: and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he brought them out of darkness, and the shadow of death; and broke their bonds in sunder. Let the mercies of the Lord give glory to him, and his wonderful works to the children of men. Because he hath broken gates of brass, and burst the iron bars.” (Ps 107:10-16)
Trust in Him. He saves.
ALM 