Drowning

In the somewhat recent past, I had quite an experience. One of my favorite parks has a river that runs around it, and its quite the local attraction. When me and my cousins from Illinois went there this month, we decided it would be a good idea to swim 20 ish yards upstream to a tree jump. So us being us, we acted a little too quickly and began to swim upstream to the tree jump. 

About 10 yards in we secretly began to doubt our ability to swim the remaining distance, and only 5 yards later I thought I was going to DIE! 

My shoulders, stomach, and legs began to cramp, my lungs began to burn, and my body was sinking faster and faster every time I tried to get a break from the current. I was so close to slipping under the water that I couldn’t hear my cousins behind me and had to keep looking behind me to make sure that their heads were above the water too, all while trying not to loose ground (aka start drowning) in the process. 

As I said, we all made it out of our plight alive, therefore I plead innocent to any injuries or nightmares that may have occurred because of this incident HAH! But in recovery group I guess I saw a bit more meaning in this. Get ready cause its about to get deep 

…pun intended… 

After open share time in my recovery group, I told two of my guys this story. I had to get real with about how we set ourself up for failure when we all decided to swim that far upstream. It looked easy until we did it and it was ROUGH! About how I thought that I could manage even though I knew I was walking into a bad situation. About how the reason I keep slipping under – falling into the grasp of the uncontrollable – is because I tried to gain control and tough it out in the first place, and although we were going to the right place, we weren’t going about it the right way (and we suffered because of it). It’s funny how almost drowning in real life has led to even this small moment of realization: 

One of the biggest reasons failures occur is because when the Holy Spirit sparks movement, we take the idea and run off the designated path, causing us to drown in the control we thought we could handle. 

So if any of you find yourselves in a river that seems calm, a river that seems safe to fight or to take under control, just keep in mind that there is a current under the surface. It will get deeper. It will hold you back. Be smart. Don’t go off the deep end. 

If any of you find yourselves only a breath away from drowning from trying to go down a path that you can now see was not set apart for you: Don’t stop kicking! However, I would 100% encourage you to turn around and swim with the current that the Holy Spirit set into motion for you. Give Him control, swim in His current, live on His timeline, run His race… He won’t let you drown.