I felt the tug of the strong, Outer Banks current on us and I knew we were in trouble. My daughter and I had been enjoying the rough surf with our new boogie boards on our first full day at the beach. I failed to notice the lone, yellow, caution flag hidden between our hotel and another. Each morning I looked for a flag on the beach, never seeing one. Each morning there actually was one, but it was inconspicuously planted between two buildings.

It was a yellow flag day and I didn’t notice.

And now, being too late to do much, I was being pulled out into deeper water with my twelve-year-old daughter. We live in the middle of the country, but having been to the ocean enough to know better, I realized some mistakes we made instantly. It was too late. We had not had the proper respect for the ocean that day. Blame it on ignorance or an improperly placed flag, we shouldn’t have been in the ocean that day.

The white-hot streak of panic ran through my heart. My daughter was barely holding onto her board. I told her to hold on and to start kicking hard toward the shore. The advice I had heard in unneeded moments about swimming sideways in rip currents did not kick in. All I could think of was getting her back to the beach.

I tried pulling her with all my strength, but I couldn’t get either of us anywhere.

“Mommy, please pray.”

So stricken by panic and water, I couldn’t say anything out loud, but inside, I squeaked out an internal, “Jesus…help us.”

Immediately, I saw a swell of water coming toward us. I was relieved to see that something was going to push us toward the shore again and I firmly told her to hold on tight because we were about to be brought in by a big wave.

My relief turned to horror, as the wave crashed over us instead of allowing us to ride on top of it. Neither of us were ready for it and we were overtaken by it, saltwater filling our noses and mouths. We had barely recovered when another one crashed over us, pushing us closer to shore but also pushing our bodies with forces we were not able to handle.

Again, a third wave. I saw glimpses of Ruthie coughing, but strong enough to look for a boogie board. A woman helping her and laughing at the waves knocking them down. She didn’t understand how I was still in danger. The few people on the beach did not see or realize how desperate I was. I tried to gurgle out a call for help but it was useless, I had lost all strength and believed I was about to drown in just two feet of water. Somehow, with the little adrenaline I had left, I was able to crawl a little further and lay there with no strength to do anything but barely heave what felt like salt and sand in my lungs. Half in the water and half on shore, I felt like a beached whale unable to do anything for myself. Eventually, I collected myself and my daughter. We sat together on the beach amazed at how the wave that saved us also almost killed us. I was too thankful to be alive to care what the people higher up on the beach thought of our mistake. I was alive and so was my girl.

This happened in September, and I am still haunted by the event. The scenes replay before me and I wonder at how easily we both could’ve drowned and it seems not a human soul would’ve done anything for us. I usually work towards stopping the replaying of the scenes because I know the feeling of panic that ensues is not healthy. Once in a while, though, I’ve tried to enter into that event again and prayerfully ask the Lord what could I learn through it.

This near-drowning experience reminds me of my constant need for Jesus. My need for Him wasn’t just my initial need for saving faith, but my daily need whether I realize it or not. I need His grace to live the life He calls me to, to love others, and in helpless situations like this. Whether I realize it at any given moment, I need him constantly. He gives me all I need to live including air in my lungs.

At all moments, I need Him to live. And at all moments I need Him so that I am not overtaken by a lack of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. I need him so that I am not completely knocked over by sadness, fear, discouragement, anger, worry, weariness, or discontentment.

When I’m faced with these things, though they feel like a strong current sweeping me away, they are opportunities to throw all my trust in His saving help.

Like Paul, I can say, “For when I am weak, then He is strong.”

This week, I’m thinking about God’s multi-faceted grace. His initial grace in saving me...

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” -Romans 5:8

His ongoing grace when I’m not even aware that I need it, when I willingly sin, when I make ignorant mistakes, and when I barely squeak out a prayer in my weakness…

Grace isn’t just God’s unmerited favor and love through Jesus Christ which brings us into relationship with Him and saves us, grace is also God’s divine assistance to us through the Holy Spirit.

My movements toward Him are sometimes quite weak – an internal, fumbling, three-word prayer or a frail crawl out of the waves with shaking arms and heaving breaths. I’ve found it to be true that a small turn of my heart, a whisper of asking for help…even an internal request for it, is always answered. This reminds me of the song Rescue sang by Lauren Daigle.

“I hear the whisper underneath your breath
I hear you whisper, you have nothing left
I will send out an army
To find you in the middle of darkest night
It’s true
I will rescue you
I will never stop marching
To reach you in the middle of the hardest fight
It’s true
I will rescue you”

-Rescue by Paul Mabury, Lauren Daigle & Jason Ingram

He always saves.

He is at work and rescuing us even when we don’t turn, speak, whisper, or think. He saves us even when we are blind and ignorant of our need for Him.

And even on the day that I ultimately won’t come out of the waves, the day I turn from the beach and head into the deep waters of the unknown, He will save me then by bringing me to Himself.

He is always rescuing us from ourselves and from the world. Yet, should we presume His help without acknowledging it? Should we presume upon His grace and care?

God is always caring for us, but we are also called to respond to Him. We are called to cry out to Him. We are called to be in a dependent relationship with Him in which we recognize His provision and care.

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:5

We are only one yielding movement away from experiencing an abundant relationship with Christ in which we experience His constant, overwhelming, overtaking wave of grace in our lives in a unique way through our abiding in Him. When we turn to Him over and over through prayer, His Word, and worship, we abide and we recognize more and more our constant need of Him. We experience His excessive, outrageous, and extreme grace.

May it not be true of us that the wave of grace is recognized only when the waves of life and the world throw us up against Him. May we recognize the great need for Christ, for abiding, for turning…always. And when the waves of the world and self come, then may we seek God’s grace in the midst of them and thank Him for His grace.

One of my favorite theologians once said:

“I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages”

― Charles H. Spurgeon

I don’t know if I can say this with the same passion Spurgeon would have, but I want to. I can at least say that I am thankful for the grace of Christ which overcomes these waves that throw me up against Him.

“In my distress I called upon the Lord,
And cried to my God for help;
He heard my voice out of His temple,
And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.”

-Psalm 18:6

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