"Drowning doesn't look like drowning"
The new captain jumped from the cockpit, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the ownerswho were swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine, what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”
How did this captain know, from fifty feet away, what the father couldn’t recognize from just ten? Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story.Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.
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Lately, God has been challenging me to see people the way He sees them. I am often tempted to, in self-centered self-consciousness, be content with labeling people and moving on with my life.
"That person seems happy, put-together, and 'too cool' for me...they're fine. Whatever."
I feel as though if I do anything or say anything, I'll just look dumb/unsophisticated or come off as an oaf. So I move on without giving a second glance (like the priest/Levite in the good samaritan story?). In essence, I'm just thinking about me.
But God has been showing me that there are people in my life who are drowning. They are in desperate need of rescue. They're not okay. They need Jesus.
I as a human can't 'save' anyone, but am I willing to be part of what God is doing? Am I reacting like the parents in the story? A little annoyed, a little put off, a little agitated...'What are you doing! We're FINE!'?
God, help me see people the way you see them, because drowning doesn't look like drowning.
This reminds me of the times when I'm kind of like drowning. Since I didn't know how to swim until freshman year at Cornell, there were times when I remember being in the deep-end of the pool for whatever reason (sometimes because I wanted to see if I could swim and sometimes because friends pushed me in).
ReplyDeleteI used to always think that drowning was a very violent time, until I read this post actually. Thinking back to my own experiences (hopefully my memory doesn't deceive me), but I think it's true that it must not be very noticeable to other people. Inside, the drowning person is full of fear and panic, but I realize now that the people around me probably couldn't see how frantic I felt at those moments. During those times, I felt like it was impossible to scream or make noise--that either it took all my energy to try to stay afloat or just the fear took my voice away. But that's just kind of a tangent, just saying that I can relate to that story about drowning.
But I too look at people, and it seems like they're fine. Some people seem like they have it all together, and I think about how God was the one who created all of us--that He says all the things in this world are empty, and I know they need Jesus, but they just all look alright. So sometimes I wonder...if I talk about the hole in our hearts, the loneliness that only God can fill--will they understand that? Have they felt the same way as I do? And do they realize that there's something more to life.
And even when sometimes I see people in need, I also assume that I can't really do anything. I'm afraid that they won't listen to me, but I guess what I fear the most is putting myself out there, or even taking the effort when I think it's just going to be rejected anyway. And I guess the hardest part for me is to understand the Lord's power or to have faith that He can do the things I don't think are possible.
Since I've been in Philly, I've seen more homeless people than I usually have. There was this one person who used to sit all day near the place that I stay. I had this plan to go buy him some quesadilla from Taco Bell, and hopefully talk to him about God. When I went to talk with him, I think he was kind of delusional--he was talking about conspiracies and what not like a normal person but with a distorted view on the world, and I didn't know what part of what he was telling me of his life story was true or false--and at the end of talking with him, I didn't tell him about Jesus or anything. I thought, is it possible for God to save this person? Would me telling him about Jesus do anything at all? I don't know, but I should have trusted that God can do the impossible, even if sometimes He doesn't. I planned to go back and talk to him again, but I waited too long. Now this person isn't outside anymore and I'm not sure where he is, and I think about how I took the time for granted.
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