Keep Paddling

 Let's face it: life is like a white water rafting adventure. Living in Alaska, I'm very familiar with this form of transportation-entertainment. And, while I've never actually done it myself, I've learned a few things about this sport over time - many of which can be oh, so applicable to life itself. 

 The first lesson is...you have to have courage. Nobody goes out on the white water rapids who isn't brave enough to face those churning waters and deal with fear. The same goes for life. One must choose brave every single moment of every day. It isn't for the faint of heart. We may know that, but do we preach it to ourselves hourly? Daily? So many things will try to get you to believe that doubt and fear are the first option. Humanly speaking, that's probably our first response in almost anything. But, if we are doing life God's way, we are to speak truth to ourselves and not listen to those fears because God is bigger than them all. It takes courage to keep choosing joy, choosing brave, choosing to live in Grace as one travels his or her own journey with God. It's not easy to stay calm when the craziness of life tosses us about. We must have faith in God's care for us and bravely continue to get into the boat and trust that He is with us...rather than doing as the disciples failed to do and crying out in fear when they forgot that He was in the boat with them, riding out the storm (Matthew 8:25-26). 

 Second lesson is...listen to your Instructor. Anybody who has taken a rafting trip knows that you must trust your expert whose done it before. You must listen to your guide. Same goes for our spiritual walk - when we fail to listen to Christ, who is our Guide, and we begin to focus too much on the waves and the rough waters, we let our own reason take over, and we will most likely make a grave mistake. We must keep our attention on the One who knows the direction better than us and trust Him to get us safely through. 

Lastly...we must keep paddling. If you want to make it through the rough waters, you must do your part to keep the momentum of the boat. It's not going to steer itself, and you'll most likely run aground on a rock if you don't direct it where you want it to go. In the Christian life, we must cooperate with the Lord in order to keep our walk with Him on track. While He will guide us in the paths of righteousness, it takes effort on our part to keep us there. We must keep paddling. Recently, I've seen many getting too comfortable in their Christian journey and failing to put in the necessary time and effort to stay in sync with God and their fellow believers. They sit back, trusting the boat to glide along, and feeling like they've got this whole Christianity thing under control. Truth is, hazards are waiting around the next corner, but they don't take that into account. They fail to realize the white waters of temptation, adversity, falsehood, and doubt are just around the bend, and they haven't built up enough momentum to carry them through those tough places. They end up either running their boat aground, or they fall out of the boat altogether. One must keep pressing into the hard things, doing the difficult and necessary measures in order to follow where God leads. This world has too many harsh realities waiting for us. Our Enemy is just looking for a chance to distract us enough, get us comfortable enough, where we'll stop pursuing the faith-life and we'll stop paddling. Truth is, we'll have moments when we get tired of paddling. In those times, we can either push ourselves to keep going, or we can hold on tight and allow others to help paddle for us until we've gathered enough strength to do our part once again. But we can't quit and stop completely. We'll fall and fail direly if we do. 

 I know life is hard. Lately, I've had to paddle a bit more furiously than before. I've had moments when I've had to ask others in my life-raft to pick up some slack because my spirit is tired. But yet, I'm determined not to fall out of this boat. I may get wet, the waves may be quiet intimidating, but I'm not going to loosen my grip on God, and I'm going to trust His eternal grip on me. I've ditched a whole lot of unhelpful people and things out of my life recently, because I know I can only have the most faithful friends and the most sure truth to carry on this journey. I'm safe in the boat of the Gospel with Christ as my Guide. If you know Him, the same goes for you too. 

 Let's all stick together, friends. Many are falling around us because they can't stand these rapids we are currently riding out. Let's keep praying for one another. Let's keep loving each other fearlessly. Let's keep helping one another in our weakest hour...because those of us who are willing to stick this out with the Lord shall see and experience the blessings He has waiting for us at the end.