Drown Proof
It was the final day of swim class. Parents, grandparents, brothers, and sisters stood around the pool and watched with great pride as the children demonstrated what they had learned. They treaded water, floated, did an assortment of strokes – the butterfly, the breast, and the crawl – and, as the daring finale, they jumped off the diving board into ten feet of water. Every stroke, kick, and gasp of air was greeted with much applause.
As the children were drying themselves off and being received by their adoring fans, the instructor said of his six and seven year old students, “As you can see, they have come a long way in a short time. They can now swim. However, they are still not drown proof!”
CONSIDER the instructor’s closing remarks: are we ever drown proof? Aren’t there times in life when the waters seem so deep, the currents so swift, the rapids so treacherous that we feel as if we are surely going to drown?
God, speaking through Isaiah, says, “When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you… For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Is 43:2-3). We are, indeed, drown proof! We might go under from time to time as we swim the waterways of life, but we will always come up and we will make it safely to journey’s end, because God travels with us. He is our Lord. He is our Savior.
Rev. Wendell Mettey
Revised 8/4/2014
