Keeping Your Head Above Water

One of the classic movies from the 1980s was a film entitled Ferris Buehler’s Day Off.  After the film’s credits, unexpectedly, Ferris, after pulling off some of the most unbelievable shenanigans a high school teen could possibly pull off in a single afternoon, looks into the camera at the end of the film, breaking the “Fourth wall” and nonchalantly says, “Life comes at you fast.”  To borrow the obvious truth of that quote and everything it could imply and to draw some parallels with what the overwhelming majority of us are probably dealing with in our day-to-day lives, life isn’t just coming at us fast, but rather with all the fury of a tsunami.  And between the rising costs of food and fuel, of medical care and insurance, of housing and higher education, there seems to be no relief in sight.

Financial obstacles aside (and don’t even get me started on the clown show that is modern American politics), the effects on the mental and emotional stability of us all, irrespective of our levels of resilience, are taking a profound punishment.  Like wave after wave after wave on the seemingly invulnerable face of a towering mountain, where it looks like the waters have no impact, imperceptibly, the waves are eroding—little by little—the integrity of that mountain.  Likewise, we are experiencing erosion with each passing day.  Many of us are beset by a myriad of health challenges, either personally or those of a loved one (and when a loved one is carrying the cross of debilitating illness, we bear that cross with them).  The impact on our psyche when we have to witness a dear family member racked with inconceivable pain is undeniable and considerable.  With all that has been mentioned thus far, there seems to be no end in sight.

Many of you immediately picked up on the reference made through the title of this post, and I assure all of the near-zealous watchers of the classic television sit-com Good Times.  My wife and I are fanatics when it comes to that show; we’ve committed to memory nearly every line from every scene from every episode.

While I’d love to continue espousing my love for the fictional show Good Times (prior to Season Four), right now, things almost feel like we’re in a real-life episode of Good Times, like we’re all just trying to “keep our head above water.”  While that show had its dramatic and serious moments, it was a comedy—but what we’re all facing right now is no laughing matter.  What we’re in the midst of, dear reader, seems like the fight of our lives just to make it, just to do our best to provide for ourselves and our families; it seems like we’re out in the middle of the Atlantic, having fallen overboard from the cruise ship of safety.  You and I can tread water for just so long; eventually, you and I will tire, sooner or later we will run out of steam, and ultimately we will succumb to the foamy-white waters of the sea of life’s tribulations.  The physics of our situation is poised to outlast us.

But in steps Christ Jesus!  Our King, our fortress, our safe place, our strength, and like He lovingly did for Peter, who, in a faith-shaking moment of fear on the raging waters of the stormy sea, immediately reached out His hand to catch His disciple and friend from being swallowed by the waters’ waves (Matt. 14:22-32).  The faithful and strong hand of Christ is the ultimate life preserver, the best and greatest deliverer in calamity-filled moments.  He is a true deliverer, not an idea, not a conceptual deliverer, and certainly not a fictional character.  

Christ Jesus doesn’t extend His hand out of a sense of obligation or pity but out of the deepest love you or I could ever know, a love that fulfills and reassures, but one that ultimately empowers us to return to the fray after defeat, to get back to the labor of life even when the results of our most recent failure are still yet strewn about.  Brothers and sisters, I say with my whole chest: Christ is faithful!  And He will never fail you; He will never hurt you; He will never forsake you.  With Christ, we can do far more than just “keep our heads above water.”

“Then the channels of waters were seen , and the foundations of the world were discovered at Thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of Thy nostrils.  He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters” (Psalm 18:15-16).