The water is cold. The air is crisp. The sun is out and there are lots of children laughing and playing. I can hear them all around but over a very short period of time their voices become muffled and I began to loose the beauty of the day. I feel myself being pulled under by a force I can't explain at the moment. Everything seems to be moving in slow motion. My heart begins beating faster and faster by each small second. I can't breathe. The water is filling my mouth and then my lungs as I try hard to move my body upward toward the surface. Everything around me becomes darker and darker. I can no longer distinguish the details of the voices, the people, or the world around me. I fight it at first thinking I don't want this life to end this way. Over the next few quick moments I slowly give in and let the water suck me into it's cold arms never to know another moment of the day. Then suddenly just as quick as I had gone into the darkness, a hand reaches in and calls my name, very quietly beckoning me to come to it. In this moment I realize there really are those out there that care whether I live or die. I longer want to give in to the darkness. I want to fight it. I want to live.
When I was young, I experienced this feeling of drowning at camp one summer. At that time my brother was the hand reaching down to me and calling out for me to come back up and be a part of this world. He fought the darkness for me at that moment, but the more I think of this moment the more I see I have felt those same feelings at other times in my life even when I was no where near a body of water. I have felt the speed of my heart beating so fast I could hear it in my ears; and I have felt the feeling of my lungs being squeezed so tight I couldn't breathe. Sometimes it was brought on by fear and other times it was brought on by the feelings of depression and slipping away from this world into a world of deep darkness where no one could get to me.
Today as I read in my quiet time I began to think of this. I was reading in Psalm 70-71. David is crying out to God to be his deliverer. He has been through many trials and struggles and is desperately seeking some sense of comfort and relief from his circumstances.
Psalm 71:20 states
"Thou, Who has shown me many troubles
and distresses, Wilt revive me again, and
wilt bring me up again from the
depths of the earth."
(NASB)
Though David had been through many trials and struggles that affected him and his friends he was assured that even though he may have sunk to the deepest depths, God would be there to bring him back up to safety. He believed without a doubt that God was there and would not leave him. God our "Father" is the one reaching His hand down to pull us back up. We have to be willing to reach out our hand when He calls to us. He has given us His word which reminds us He is here with us. I have found that we must read it and claim it ALOUD so that it becomes real and ALIVE to us. If we are willing to do this we will know He is there and we will not be able to hear the sounds of the water rushing over us and pulling us down because God will be there to pull us up.
Other verses:
- II Timothy 1:7
- John 14:27
- Proverbs 3:21
- John 14:6
- Ephesians ch. 6
- Proverbs 4:23
- II Corinthians 12:9
No comments:
Post a Comment