What Saving A Boy Taught Me About The Savior

A sharp breeze kicked at my heels as I glanced out across the water.  A spray from the waves of the pool I was lifeguarding would occasionally come up towards me.  It was a day late in May and dozens of children had come to swim at our wave pool, as is typical during the winding down period of the school year.  I had been a lifeguard for several years and, as one can imagine at a wave pool, had experienced numerous saves.  It was not uncommon for a lifeguard at this pool to save someone, or multiple people, daily.

My eyes drifted to a small boy nearly directly in front of me.  He was jumping in the waves and enjoying his time, right in line with the perimeter the teachers had created at the point where the water deepened.  I looked right, observing the young ones in the shallow water playing and splashing, the few walking the deck.  I brought my eyes left again, quickly observing each child as I scanned when suddenly, I spotted the first small boy who had been directly in front of me being dragged back into the deep water by the waves.  He was now in water much taller than he was and any attempt to stay above the water was futile.  There was no time to call for backup, no time to turn off the waves. Now was the time to act.

I skirted the edge of the pool, eyes locked on the boy.  He turned to look at me just as a wave crashed into the back of his head.  The water reached around his head towards his face, almost resembling watery fingers encapsulating him.  His eyes met mine just before the water covered his face, and I yelled out to him, "I'm going to come for you!"

I jumped off the deck into the water and, eyes open, I spotted him near me underwater, thrashing.  The save went smoothly from there, wrapping my arm around his body and pulling him close to me while I held the buoy in my other hand. I took us back to the shallow as he coughed a bit and it was over.  I made sure he was alright, and he was, and I went back to my guard stand.  Yet, all this time later this rescue would come back to my mind.  He had looked into my eyes as he was drowning, something that was rather uncommon in my experience. What was he thinking when he looked up into my eyes?

I hope that he had one hundred percent confidence that I would come for him.  I hope that he had one hundred percent confidence that I was stronger than the waves and the water, that I had the ability to save him, the ability to come for him and not be drown too.

I would hope that when we see the Savior that we would have one hundred percent confidence, absolute trust, that He will come for us, and not just that He will come for us, but that He has the ability to save us.

Like the boy who had been gradually dragged back into waves, even depths, from which he could not rescue himself, you may at times be dragged back into the deep.  This may be from sins, no matter how small or large, even to the point of covenant breaking.  It also may be no fault of your own, uncontrollable situations such as mental disorders, physical challenges, and spiritual crisis.

On the last night of his mortal excursion, the Lord sat with his Apostles in perhaps one of the most sacred instances of instruction in the New Testament.  The Savior, in response to the Apostle's fear that He would no longer be with them, exhorted them, "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me"  He continues, "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you" (John 14:1,18).

Don't lose heart.  For those of you battling the temptations and sins of the flesh, even to the point of covenant breaking, the Lord has promised you great redemption.  In the words of Stephen E. Robinson, essentially the Lord says to you, "It doesn't matter what you did.  Whatever it was, no matter how horrible or vile, is not the issue.  The issue here is that whatever your sin was or is, I can erase it.  I can clean you up and make you innocent, pure, and worthy, and I can do it today; I can do it now" (8).  Believe that He has the ability to make you as clean as you ever were.

If you face the vast variety of crisis in the world that exist in both the human mind and around us, things mental, physical, financial, etc., know that the Lord is keenly aware of you.  If you haven't learned this by now, it is not in the Lord's nature to snap his fingers and cure or fix your problems instantaneously, though each of us, including myself, find ourselves praying that it will happen that way.  There may be times when the Lord will just keep you alive.  Know that there is a sunrise, somewhere, someday.  That may not come today or tomorrow, but it will come eventually.  Someday, all things will be made right.  For now, press on with faith in a brighter tomorrow and know that He will not leave you comfortless; He will come to you.


References:

Robinson, Stephen E. Believing Christ. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company. 1992. Print.