Waist Deep in Cold Water
I enjoy fishing. Who does not? Some people prefer catching to fishing. I am one of those who simply enjoys the outdoors and catching is bonus. One year I was on a trip with my parents and their best friends to a lake in Northern Saskatchewan. It was one of those perfect days when the sun shone, the temps were warm, and the wind only blew hard enough to keep you cool not so much as to rock the boat. On top of all that the bite was on. We stopped for a shore lunch to eat the walleye we had caught. While my Dad and his friend filet the fish. I grabbed my rod and kept fishing. I had a fish on with every cast. I was catching hammer handles and releasing them. A hammer handle refers to the size of the Northern Pike I was catching. They were about the size of a hammer handle; small but they can really fight. The fishing, catching, and releasing was getting more and more intense and I was losing myself in the process that I failed to realize one thing.
Before I let you know what happened next let me share with you that his is not a lake surrounded by beaches and grassy shorelines. Rather it is filled with rock, mostly solid rock. I was standing on a solid rock face that descended like a boat ramp, only a sharper angle, into the cold waters of this Northern Saskatchewan Lake. In the middle of my excitement of fishing, catching, and releasing these hammer handles I was creeping more and more to the edge of the water. Suddenly I began to slide into the water. At that moment, what was really seconds felt like time stood still. I managed to turn around and clearly remember the struggle of moving my feet back up the face of the rock as I continued to slide in the other direction. I imagine it looked like a scene from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It was too late, and I got to the edge of that rock face, the part that was hidden under the water. Over I went and quickly found myself stopped standing up to my waist in cold water.
My Dad’s best friend who had been watching all this transpire reached out to me and helped me get back up that slippery slope. When I was safe on level dry land, he looked at me and asked if it was alright for him to laugh now. We laughed together.
How often in life do we find ourselves caught up in the intensity of a moment that we fail to realize that morally we have edged closer to the edge of that rock. By the time we realize that we have been slipping it is too late. No matter how hard we try to turn things around we only feel ourselves continue to slide and the only thing that stops us is rock bottom. The only way out of that predicament is for someone to reach out to us and lift us up and out.
The Apostle Peter was a fisherman. Peter fell in the water. He had been walking with Jesus on the waters that had been stirred up by the storm. When he took his eyes off Jesus he immediately began to sink. He cried out to Jesus to save him. Jesus reached down and pulled him out of the water. (Matthew 14:22-33)
When you find yourself sliding down that slippery slope or maybe you have already hit bottom. Pull a Peter ask Jesus to save you. He will reach down into your predicament to help you out.
