When You're Drowning

The enormous waves are crashing all around, first one, then the next, getting higher by the minute.  You feel yourself sinking fast, and panic fills your pores.  The howling wind pretty much drowns out your desperate cries.   Help!  Please, please help!  Save me!!

You had started out so brave.  Your faith had once been so strong.  What happened?  How did you end up here, drowning in this violent storm?

You have been following Jesus for a while now, and sure, you have experienced your share of hardships, but getting to know Jesus personally, learning from Him and walking side by side with Him.  You wouldn’t trade that for all the fish in the sea! 

During these past few years, you have seen first-hand the amazing, miraculous things that He can do.  The broken have been healed.  Hunger has been satisfied.  Prisoners have been set free.  You know, you just know that He is who He says He is!   You vow in your heart that whatever He asks you to do, wherever He asks you to go, you will say yes.

So when He calls you to Come, to step into the unknown, to walk by faith in a way that you never have before, you are thrilled!  This is the moment you have been waiting for!  The moment when you yourself get the great privilege of seeing your life go from ordinary to extraordinary,  Of being a part of the miraculous!

Not Me!

Do you ever feel like Moses sometimes?  There you are, minding your own business, living in the middle of Nowhere Desert, quietly herding sheep and raising a family.¹  Nothing spectacular ever really happens, and that’s just the way you like it.  There was a time when you thought you might enjoy living in bustling Egypt, with its grandiose building projects, bountiful crops, and a vigorously healthy population.² 

However, as you got older, you realized that the government is corrupt, the average person is way over-worked and under-paid, and the laws, instead of protecting children, actually decree that they should be murdered.³  No, thank you, you think.  That’s not me.  I prefer living an average, peaceful life in seclusion and anonymity.  I like routine.  Predictability.

And then, in one moment, on one ordinary day when you least expect it, everything changes.  You don’t exactly see a burning bush or hear an audible voice, but the message is just as clear.⁴  God is calling you, not to go and deliver his people from slavery, but to go and deliver a child from a hopeless, fatherless future.  He is asking you to be the one to rescue an orphan. 

Your first reaction, the automatic response is, Not me!  You are asking the wrong person, Lord!  I’m not brave enough!  I don’t have any special skills or experience or training.  I don’t have the right personality for it, and I know nothing about children who have been abused or neglected.  And You know I don’t handle stress very well.  I really and truly can’t do this.  Please, oh please, ask someone else to do it!⁵

Impossible

It was never supposed to happen.  From start to finish, every trail of your parents’ journey to reach you was stamped with a signpost marked “Impossible.”  The terrain was rocky and steep, filled with roadblocks, the view around each corner completely obstructed.

They did not qualify to adopt from the country where you were born.  Their finances were woefully inadequate, and they could never afford the adoption expenses.  Their spiritual leaders, the ones they respected and from whom they sought counsel, advised them against it.  She had serious health issues that prevented her from traveling.  And perhaps the most obvious Impossible sign:  another family had already begun the process to adopt you.

Common sense said no.  The list of reasons to quit just kept growing.  The obstacles seemed insurmountable.  Their efforts and prayer seemed futile.  And yet . . . they dared to hope.