Story Time

 Our nephew has a private swimming pond on their farm. You can book times so that no one else is there, just your group. A nice private place to swim with a small sand beach. They have a dock that’s about two feet off the water. 

They also have three different diving boards. The low one is about five feet off the water. 

Our son invited us to join them for a swim. They have three children; the oldest is a six-year-old girl, then a three-year-old boy who will be four in two months, plus a baby. 

The six-year-old and the three-year-old had life jackets on and enjoyed playing in the water. The boy has little fear and a high pain tolerance level, just a rough, little, kind of boy. He can be naughty and needs lots of correction, but he really loves his dad. He would run along the dock and jump into the water and would go under and come up spurting, with a big grin on his face, and go do it again. He would hold his nose closed when running along the dock and then took his hand off his nose when he jumped into the water. He was after all three. He was also swimming around in the deep water. He would climb up on the five-foot diving board and walk about halfway to the end and jump off the side. Needless to say, he did get water in his system, but he was having fun. 

His dad would call to him to go to the end of the board and jump in. “No”, that was a bit too fearful a thing to do. He went and got him to climb on his back and hold on around his neck. Together they jumped off the end of the board. Because he is much heavier than the little fellow, they went way down, but after a bit they surfaced. The little fellow was still hanging on. I'm sure he would have done it again. He trusted his dad. 

I looked at that scene and got to thinking. The little fellow was in very deep water, water that was way over his head, water he could easy drown in, but he was safe. He had a big strong dad. He was riding on his back, nothing would happen. Then I wondered about our heavenly Father. God is just like that. 

Sometimes in life we get into deep water, water that is way over our head, but if we hold onto God really tightly nothing will happen. God will make sure to keep us safe. So, if we are facing a situation that looks fearful and just downright scary just get onto God's back. Grab him around the neck and hold on. We will surface plenty in time. In the Bible there are plenty places that tell us to just trust God. He knows way more then we, he is much stronger, and a much better swimmer. If he is asking us to jump off the diving board and we are scared, he will gladly take us on his back, but we must hold on and keep holding on. 

Oh, for faith and trust of a little child. It seems the verse 'a little child shall lead them' (Isaiah 11:6) was so clearly shown to me. I should just do like my little grandson, trust my Father completely.