Author Thoughts – Swim to the Current 082125
I know it’s late, but some things just cannot wait. When something’s on me, it just has to happen as the Spirit moves me. This evening marked the third week of 13 in our GriefShare program, with the topic being “Sadness and Loneliness.” Tonight’s video was powerful, quite sad, but each glimpse of sadness contained a message to cling to God as you face your grief, because it will ultimately change your life.
That’s so easily said to a person within a month or more of their loss. There are well-meaning words they cannot hear…not yet. Those I observed this evening were listening, but their faces said they weren’t hearing. They were consumed by their grief, a loss of only five weeks earlier, spiraling, not hearing, and not seeing a way out. There is a way out. Welcome to GriefShare.
Have you ever side-armed a flat stone across a still pond and watched it skip? The harder the stone is hurled, the more it skips before giving in to gravity and slipping into the depths of the pond. Our Faith Life is much like the relationship between the stone and the pond. Whatever hurls you in life, the question then becomes, how long can you skip before surrendering to gravity?
I’ve been the stone, and have been hurled through the window of life, over and over, and fought against gravity to control the momentum of circumstances that pulled me relentlessly toward the water, where I would surely drown in whatever troubles were waiting for me there.
Relying on my faith to avoid drowning was much like the skipping stone across the water, where each shortened skip, each contact with the water, was God telling me, “Stop fighting. I’ve got this, dude. Trust me.”
And what do I do? I shun His offer and skip off His promise of love once again to fly back into the freedom of the air I know, only to fall back into His grace and His Living Water.
Repeatedly, I attempted to regain my flight plan despite each skip to freedom being a little shorter, and more of my control gives way to His relentless gravity…His pursuit of me. His promise that I’ll never thirst again if only I would trust and drink His living water.
Ultimately, I gave in to Him after the world proved that being hurled into life’s circumstances and skipping across the surface of His love was not sustainable. Surrender was the solution. Was it my fate to learn that, or was that just another mysterious piece of His perfect plan? Not a clue, man. Not a clue.
It’s another day. Snatch it like a big dog. Trust. Stay in the current of His love. If not there yet…swim to it.
I know I’ll be hurled many more times in this life, but I will no longer skip; I will hand over control to His Spirit to swim where I’ll be in His current.
Peace! G.
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Author Thoughts are posted on my Facebook Author Page, Learning by Living, and my Substack site.