“Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, surely I will uphold you with
My righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10

“One verse, chosen to meet your need, read ten times and laid up in your heart, is better than ten verses read once. Only so much of the Word as I actually receive and inwardly appropriate for myself is food for my soul.” (Andrew Murray)

Here’s a quote that a friend sent. It caused me to sit and think a while.

“How great it is that we have an eternal, omniscient, unchanging God who lets us flop and flog and flounder and fight and struggle to ‘reach the shore’, but who constantly tugs on us with an ‘undercurrent’, pulling us to deeper waters where pressures are even greater and the ‘securities’ are less’no islands, no ships, no planks’just Jesus.”

When we’re floundering in deep water we begin searching frantically trying to find something to grab and hang on to’some source of safety, don’t we? A water-soaked plank, the shoreline, a person, a voice yelling at us telling us what to do, anything! And so many of us do what Peter did when he was walking on the water (an amazing feat Peter!) and glanced at the tumultuous waters around him’he got panicky. Jesus was still standing in front of Peter, probably smiling at him, encouraging him, but Peter forgot who was going through this frightening experience with him’walking on the very same body of roiling water’and Peter got scared!

There is a lesson that God wants us all to learn: Jesus is all that we need’no matter how deep the water may be. To help us grasp this magnificent truth He often takes us out to even deeper waters where “the securities are less’no islands, no ships, no planks’just Jesus.” If we would only remember that He says to us, “I will go before you. I will not leave you. Don’t be afraid and don’t get scared’don’t anxiously look about you” (Deut. 31:8). He is walking through this frightening’perhaps devastating’experience with us. He knows everything that is happening’and everything that is going to happen.

So we can try our best to get to shallow water’fighting like crazy’or we can just “hang on tight to Jesus and float.” (You know, I can float a long, long, long time if I have an Inner Tube!)

Easy to say, Anabel, hard to do. How do I make this real in my life? In your mind. Imagine it. See yourself in this turbulent water’but you’re not alone’you are hanging on to Jesus for dear life! See it! Set your mind on it! Memorize scriptures that tell you this beautiful truth. Say them over and over and over! Make this truth yours!

Is this “faking yourself out?” No. This is clutching tenaciously to Truth’Jesus. “You will know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free” (John 8:32).