I've been back in Georgia for one month now, and as I've been reflecting on the many things that the Lord taught me and spoke to me in Hawaii, on the gifts He began to draw forth from me and the boldness He began to cultivate in me, one lesson stands out.
When God calls us to tust Him in following Him out into deeper waters of unfamiliarity, what does that trust look like?
While in Kona, the Lord put in my path another Kokua Crew volunteer named Jiho. He was this really cool handsome Korean guy, a man's man, pretty buff, and when I was walking at his side along the streets of downtown Kona, the boys who once cat-called me didn't dare look at me twice. I felt safe with Jiho. He bought me calamari for my first time ever, he always made me smile and feel better on a hard day, and he became one of few people to know the facts about myself or my life that I'm insecure about. We worked in the kitchen together: he was "the Boss" of the dish pit; I was his side-kick. And somewhere between coffee shops, swinging in the hammocks, dancing and magic tricks in the dish pit, rides across the cafeteria on the floor-mat carts, spraying friends with our water hose, long talks, encouraging each other, and praying together, we became close friends.
I learned a lot from him. I learned how to be present and live in the moment, how to trust the future to the Lord, how to trust others again, and how to appreciate every part of the person that God made me to be. This particular lesson is one that the Lord had taught me multiple times before and which I've shared before- it's what first brought me to Hawaii, in fact- but it became more real to me than ever in my time spent in Kona.
It was a beautiful, warm day on the Big Island, much like every day was. It was Jiho's last weekend there (he had arrived before our quarter began), and a group of us decided to go road-tripping around the island. So that Saturday, we drove across the island from Kona to Hilo to a hot spring. It was a little pool of water filled from an inlet of the ocean and warmed underneath by one of the volcanoes.
We were in no big hurry. We stopped for lunch; we stopped to take pictures of a small waterfall, of the land, of a running herd of wild goats on the mountainside. We took our time and we enjoyed it. It was nearing dusk when we arrived at the hot spring.
As some of you know, I can't swim. I can't float at all. I will literally sink to the bottom of a pool like a rock. I can't swim and my closest friends knew that so they let me sit on a rock ledge in the pool and came back and forth to hanging out in the shallow water near me. I was very content to stay where I was.
But Jiho came over to me and held out his hand for me to take it and follow him farther out into the water. I gave him a look of skepticism. "You know I can't swim," I reminded him. He only nodded andd beckoned me toward him.
I trusted Jiho more than I do most people in my life even here in Georgia, so I chose to trust him again. I took his hand and I let him pull me out into the middle of the pool. And do you know what I discovered? In the deepest part of the water, my feet still touched the floor and my head was still well above the water. It wasn't as scary as I had thought it was. And Jiho had known that.
The following day, Sunday, our group went to Hapuna Beach nearby. Again, of course, I still couldn't swim. But after allowing Jiho and one of our friends JuHeon to bury me up to my neck in the sand, I was covered with sand from head to toe. So I took Jiho's extended hand again, and allowed him to draw me out into the ocean with him to help wash the sand off of me.
I'll be honest: I was a little scared. I couldn't swim, I wasn't wear my glasses for fear of losing them in the water so I was partly blind, and the waves of the Pacific Ocean on the coast of Hawaii are intense. The last time that I had set foot in the ocean, I had only been about fifteen years old and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina had very few waves.
"Remember, I can't swim, okay?" I cautioned Jiho again. "You won't leave me, right? You won't let me drown?"
He nodded. "I won't leave you," he promised.
And about the time those words fell from his lips, I experienced a full-on wave for the first time in my life. I panicked. I screamed and I started back to the shore, but Jiho caught me and towed me farther out into the water with him, me screaming and laughing the entire time.
We only went as far into the ocean until the water reached my chest, but even there, the waves crashed over my head and left me sputtering and clinging to Jiho as if my life depended on it. "I can't tell if you're laughing or screaming," our friend Nick observed from watching in amusement nearby.
And when it became too much for me, Jiho helped me back to shore where I caught my breath and dried out.
When that memory comes to mind, I think of trust. You see, God showed me that sometimes when He calls us out into the deeper waters, it actually is scary. Sometimes we scream and we feel like we are going to drown. Sometimes it takes us way out of our comfort zone. But just as Jiho kept his word to me and didn't leave my side through it, God reminds me through that incident that He doesn't leave us in the midst of the waves either.
No matter how terrifying the waters in which we might find ourselves in this life, God never abandons us. He never leads us out in our trust in Him and then leaves us. He is always there, always our anchor, always our rock for us to cling to when the waves crash over us and always our arms of security to run to. No human being on this earth can do that always for us in the storms of life, no matter how much we love them. Not a parent, not a sibling, not a child, not a boyfriend or girlfriend, not a spouse, not a best friend. But God can. And God does.
Sometimes- dare I say, most of the time- following Him into the deeper waters looks like trusting Him even when we can't see clearly where He's leading us though. Even when we're "partly blind" to what's up ahead. But like that shallow little hot spring, sometimes it turns out that the step of faith, the test of trust, He's calling us to when He extends His hand for us to take and allow Him to lead us in, isn't as scary as we think. Sometimes it turns out to not be a big obstacle for us at all. Like when He called me to share a devotion before about a hundred people of our crew and I realized that it wasn't as hard to do as I had thought it would be. The waters sometimes aren't as deep as we think they're going to be. But rarely will we know that before taking the step of faith to choose to trust Him. Because it wouldn't be much of a step of "faith" then, would it be? For "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1) And "we live by faith, not by sight." (2Corinthians 5:7) It doesn't always see what's up ahead. Sometimes situations just need to test us and challenge us to evaluate what degree to sacrifice and trust we're willing to make for God and for the purposes He's calling us to.
We take confidence in the assurance that our all-knowing, omnipresent God also knows our limitations. He knows when we're just screaming from feeling overwhelmed by the situation we're in and He knows at what point we actually would be overwhelmed by it. He knows that and He never puts us through more than He knows that we can handle. But He does stretch us and use those situations to remind us of our need and dependence on Him and His strength and guidance. Sometimes that means that while we're content where we are or while we're running in the opposite direction back to the safe place of our comfort zone of control and familiarity- back to the shore- He just might put us in situations that will challenge us and grow us even if in the moment, our fear of the unknown makes us struggle to embrace it. Why? Because when I got back to shore, I was soaked from head to toe, salty ocean water burned in my nose and throat, my heart was beating so fast with adrenaline, and I felt like I had nearly drowned (though, of course, I hadn't), but I had had the best, most exhilarating time and would not have traded it for anything. I had loved it! Likewise, on the other side of the steps of faith that we take in our lives, there is no regret. Only thankfulness, only growth, and only still greater faith.
Maybe you're going through a storm right now. Maybe you have some life-altering decisions to make up ahead or that you're faced with even right now. Maybe your heart knows that God is extending His hand to you, asking you to follow Him in faith, but you're holding back in fear. Fear of finances, of loneliness, of failure. Fear of the unknown. I've been there. This past month being back in Atlanta, Georgia, has been a month of wrestling with just that. But as one of my favorite verses reminds me, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths." (Proverbs 3:5&6) It's a promise to us that God's been reminding me of for the past three years and still reminds me of. But that promise succeeds a choice of surrender on our part. We hear this lesson so many times, but it's true and so often we need to be reminded of it again. My friend Rachel loves to tell me that in every step of life, "God's got you." In the calm and in the waves. And He does. Take heart. He's got our back; He's got our hand. And He's never letting go.
"But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says, 'Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.'" Isaiah 43:1-3
*Many thanks to Jiho for his good friendship those three months, for putting up with me and having my back, tolerating my writer's quirks, and giving me permission to write about him. :)
