Going Backwards Over Rapids

I eked out every second of kayaking I could this past weekend. This morning, I fly out of town to hang out with my super-cool nephew Anthony so his folks can go on a long-overdue vacation. I also get to take care of their very shiny and rascally pup, Susy. I expect the three of us are going to get into all kinds of trouble.

So knowing I would have a week without kayaking, I was on the river all weekend. At one point, I decided to hold my camera and videotape myself going over the rapids.. That event is memorialized HERE.  Since my hands were occupied with the camera and I couldn't paddle, I ended up in the midst of some pretty frothy water and spun around backwards. I traveled most of the rapids backwards. I could see where I'd been, but not where I was going.

I was zooming along at top speed without the slightest idea if there were rocks I was going to slam up against or how much longer I would be in the potentially dangerous wild waters. I had no control over my speed or direction. I was just going along for the ride, wherever the current would take me.

Isn't that just like life sometimes?

Yesterday at the abortion center one of our new volunteers stopped a car with a young couple headed to abort their baby. Our volunteer did a great job getting them our literature, discussing why they shouldn't abort, and urging them to go on our mobile unit. I always tell new volunteers that if they stop a car, go ahead and speak as we have trained them and as the Holy Spirit guides.. Meanwhile, one of the experienced volunteers will head over to help.

So I hurried over. The couple was clearly very conflicted. The young man even wore a shirt that talked about God's strength. Just as the new volunteer had done, I gave my all to try to convince them. They said, "It's all right. Thank you, but we are okay."

"Sir," I said, "You are not okay if you claim Christ, as you do on your shirt but then you plan to defy what He clearly commands."

They listened for about fifteen minutes, and agreed it was wrong to abort, God would not have them abort, they believed and claimed to know God, they knew it was a human being in the womb, they were sorrowful....they took our literature with the pictures of babies at different gestational ages....

BUT when I asked them to please pull over and let me bring them on the RV to see their child's heartbeat, they pulled away...and drove into the abortion center. Paddling backwards over rapids...

The Bible says that when we are without faith that God is at the helm, we are like waves in the ocean, tossed about at the mercy of the winds. When our foundation is anything but Christ, it is shifting sand. The Lord is the anchor for our soul. Over and over again, the Bible reminds us that if want to live a life that is steady and true, not tossed about in wavering doubt, we must trust God to take control. Otherwise, we are doomed to shoot over dangerous rapids backwards without a paddle.

Within a few minutes, the young couple emerged from the clinic. They had been the last in...but the first out. They did not have any papers in their hands or anything to indicate a supply of pills or discharge instructions. As they drove out, the young woman had our literature in her lap, and was looking at the pictures of babies in the womb. Maybe they had just recovered their paddle.

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James 1:6-8 

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Hebrews 6:19 

We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,