Swimming Lessons

I want to tell you a story about something that happened to me at work on Monday that completely broke me down.

On Monday afternoon, there was a girl who came in for a private swim lesson named Lauren.  I noticed her because she had an odd way of leaning her head to one side or the other when she was talking, and she was constantly running her hands together.  She is blind.  As I sat there thinking about it, it struck me that her decision to learn how to swim was incredibly brave.  Next time you're in a pool, close your eyes and swim around.  Now imagine that you have no idea what a pool looks like.  Or water.  Or anything.  And to strike out into that unknown is incredibly courageous.  She was loving it.  Whenever she did something, she would lean her head to the side, listening for the approval and instruction of her teacher, Miss Colleen.  Miss Colleen encouraged me to clap whenever she did something, so I did it.  The joy that Lauren took from me simply clapping was astonishing.  She delighted in doing something that created joy for someone else.  After she was done with her lesson, her teacher led her over to my guard stand, and Lauren asked me if she could be the lifeguard for a little bit.  I tried to help her into the seat, but she wouldn't let me and wanted to climb up on her own, which she did.  She sat there with her eyes closed, the biggest smile on her face, feeling the chair and the guard tube I handed her and asking what things were.  As I told her, she got more and more excited, and then she told me the most amazing thing.  She said, "I can see the people swimming.  I'm a lifeguard."  She climbed out of the seat and was led back to her mom, laughing and talking about the whole experience.

I desperately want to be like little Lauren in my relationship with God.  There is so much about my God that I cannot understand, so much about my life that I don't fathom, and all too often I'm content to just sit back and let life happen around me.

• I must get in the water with God, even though I may not be able to see where I am going, or even what is happening around me.
• I must learn to trust Him to take care of me in those situations.
• I must delight in giving joy to others.
• I must learn to experience God in as many ways as I can, learn to hear His voice and listen to what He tells me.
• I must believe the impossible is possible with God.

Matthew 14:22-33 is the story of Jesus walking on the water.  The disciples see someone doing the impossible, walking on the water, and they become afraid.  But then Jesus opens His mouth, and tells them what He tells me over and over; "Take heart; it is I.  Do not be afraid."  May I learn to trust Him in whatever He asks me to do.

Profundity

Profundity is defined by dictionary.com as "the quality or state of being profound; depth."  I have often wished for profundity; I find myself desperately desiring to be deep and profound in the things I have to say when it comes to sharing my faith, or talking about the Word.  Looking at this today, I think it's really, really prideful and wrong; not because being deep is a bad thing, but because I want to be deep so that people will hear me speak and think greater of me.  This cannot be.  I am called to carry the name of Christ and to make it famous, not to make my own name famous or popular.  I am merely a tool of God.  Isaiah 43:1-4 is the most incredible, profound thing I have ever read-because the Creator of existence said it to me, and He meant every word of it.

"(1) But now thus says the Lord, He Who created you, O Jacob, He Who formed you, O Israel: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.  I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you.  Because you are precious in My eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.

That is the most amazing thing I have ever read.

Further Up and Further In

In my mind, there is a list of people I want to get to know when I get to heaven (during the time I'm not on my face worshipping my King, if such a time exists).  I want to get to know my grandfathers better.  I want to meet the older brother or sister that never got to see this world because of a miscarriage.  I want to meet Paul.  I want to meet Peter.  There are more, but you get the picture.  Another one of those people is C.S. Lewis.  I love his books.  Everything I've read by him has been fantastic, and it has taught me so much.  The Narnia books in particular are excellent-they are my favorite books of all time, and I can't wait to get to read them to my kids one day.  Lewis had such a gift of putting words to paper and painting pictures with those words.  Every time I read one of these books, I learn something new, and God shows Himself to me in a new and beautiful way.

In The Last Battle, the last of the seven Narnia books, he describes the end of the journey for the beloved characters that he created.  He brings them into the true Narnia, and tells them to run, and to run further up and further in, always deeper into the land.  The cool thing is, the deeper they get, the bigger it gets, and the more real it gets-it's crazy.  And they stop running to talk, and Aslan speaks to them.  He tells them, "You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be."  He then tells them that they have entered heaven, and Lewis finishes up the book with this paragraph.  "And for us, this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.  But for them it was only the beginning of the real story.  All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

That is beautiful.  I recommend reading the whole book, if only for the full description of Lewis's vision of the Narnian heaven.  But as I read this and write about it, I await God's heaven with so much anticipation.  Because Lewis understood it perfectly: not what heaven looked like, or how it's laid out, or what will happen when we get there.  What he understood was the significance of it: we are going to spend the rest of forever living in perfect harmony with a beautiful and loving God, and that is the true story of humanity.  The ransom and redemption of enemies, and a drawing to Himself of us whom He loves.  And one day, that will be my story that will begin and never end.

Back To It

Time for another semester.  I'm getting close to the finish of my undergrad studies, which I'm extremely excited about finishing up-it' been a long time coming.  It's been a crazy few years of learning and growth.  I ran away from God for a long time, got lost in myself, and then out of nowhere God decided that He wasn't done with me (this wasn't out of nowhere for Him, just for me).  So I've spent roughly the last year and a half trying to grow, and having mixed results.  But I think that's part of the growing process-you have times where your passion for God is like a raging inferno, and all you can do is study the Word.  Then there are times when you have no desire at all to learn.  Those times suck, in case you were wondering.  But the cool thing, at least for me, has been that, as I grow, the little things I learn come back around again-like learning about grace, and then seeing it firsthand in my life.  Gotta love a God who is so personal.

I'm doing some studying for Bible study tomorrow, and we're looking at Romans 1:18-32.  It's really dark and intense-it basically lays out for us how, because of the way God reveals Himself to us in His creation, we have no excuse for the sin in our lives.  We are aware of God, even if we never choose to acknowledge it, and that is what makes us accountable for our actions.  As I read this, it makes me so grateful for God calling me to Himself-I don't want to fall down into the sin and wickedness that the rest of the chapter describes.  It is the trap of worshipping the creation over the Creator.

So with the beginning of the new semester, I'm going to try to write more often-it definitely helps me nail down my thoughts and whatnot, and it's something I thoroughly enjoy.  I'm also going to be posting my chosen music for the day each time I write.  Today, it's been Caspian's Four Trees-excellent instrumental post-rock group out of Massachusetts.  Saw these guys live in Orlando last year on spring break at a little hole in the wall bar.  There were maybe forty people there, and they played like it was to a thousand screaming fans-I was most impressed and thoroughly enjoyed it.