Buoy ... oh buoy

Imagine you’re a child taken by your parents to the beach, or the swimming pool. You’ve never been near so much water before. But it’s time to try … hesitantly, encouraged by a grown up, you splash water everywhere in a panic, and you hold tight to the buoy they’ve given you for safety.

Clever thing the buoy – a ring filled with air able to hold you up when you’re drowning.

Every rescue boat has some on board and every ship is equipped with several – just in case.

But what about when we’re on terra firma so to speak? When we go about our way throughout our lives.

We often encounter many dangers and difficulties, be they of our own making or they “just happen” as they often do.

Crises like sudden illness, loss of work, relationship breakdowns, financial hardships and so on. You name it, most of us have encountered it.

We panic, we splash about, we try to hold tight to someone for help – a relative, a friend, just anyone before we loose control and drown in the depth of our own personal crisis.

And as we struggle to keep our head above water we forget what we should do instinctively … reach out to God.

A drowning man instinctively reaches out to a buoy for safety. So does a child in a pool.

And so should we – instinctively, in full confidence, we should know in every crisis that He is there, ready to help.

Every hesitant minute which delays our reaching out to Him is a wasted minute drifting us away from His omnipotent presence.

Oh ... and one more thing ...

When Peter got off the boat and walked towards Jesus on the waves he succeeded for a moment or two because he was focussed on Christ. The moment his focus moved away to the waves and the sea he began to sink.

What's the point having a Leader who walks on water if we are not prepared to follow Him?