Enjoy the Ride

What joy to take the grandkids whitewater rafting! I just love the expressions on their faces – particularly when I know how timid about water two of them had been.

It reminds me of our ride through life. The rough water can be a source of joy and a boost to our faith. Or it can frighten us away from experiencing all the Lord has to offer.

Only a day before the rafting adventure, Samuel, 8, (front) was nervous getting on a paddle boat in a calm lake with the rest of us. The stage for a “strong and courageous” talk already had been set the night before the paddle boat excursion when the three kids were freaked out by a spider in their tent in the middle of the night.

In our smaller tent next to them, Margaret and I listened to the ruckus of the “gigantic” spider who they claimed could fly and was as fast and elusive as the wind. I hollered from our tent for the boys to be protectors, smash the spider with a shoe, be quiet and go to sleep. After several failed attempts, they showed up at the front of our tent, excited nearly to tears, pleading for me to kill the spider.

So I entered the tent of horrors and promptly pounded the garden-variety spider with my Adidas flip flop. The kids saw it was only about the size of a nickel, yet in their minds they still think it was huge. Their fears had fed off one another until the spider became legendary.

Breakfast talk the next morning centered on fear and recalled the story of Daniel and the lions’ den. They listened when I said if you fear God, you needn’t fear anything else. We also talked about how God told Joshua to “be strong and very courageous” as he prepared to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. Fear is not from the Lord, though prudence is.

That pep talk emboldened Samuel to get on the paddle boat. After rafting, he said the paddle boat ride had been scarier. I suppose that first act of courage and leap of faith is the toughest.

The previous year Hannah, 9, was clingy and nervous on a canoe trip down a lazy river flowing into Lake Michigan. Stephen, 12, on the other hand, was on his third rafting trip, having never hesitated and even surviving the Snake River in Wyoming with me.

The rough waters in rafting were a blast, but not all rough waters in life are. Sometimes we shoot the rapids by choice, others times it seems we are just thrown in. Entering missions is a choice Margaret and I made, although admittedly not without some fear and trepidation.

But we did not choose to be knocked out of the boat into the rushing waters. That happens to all of us at one time or another and the older I get the more I realize it just goes with the territory, particularly when serving the Lord.

Still, we can say we have been blessed immeasurably by the ride and take comfort in those times when we have been tossed by remembering Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”