Laughing While Drowning — An Affair with Reason

Nov 14

Nov 14 Laughing While Drowning

As I lay in bed struggling to breathe, my lungs infected with pneumonia for the second time in less than two years, and my mind staggering between the truth of God's sovereign goodness and the lies of self-pity and fear, I recall a sermon illustration I heard decades ago, not long after my decision to follow Jesus.

As a teenager Pastor Peter Hiett had served as a lifeguard, and during that time a young boy who didn't know how to swim would occasionally come to the pool, jump in the deep end, and allow himself to sink to the bottom, waiting to be rescued. As the boy plunged into the water with no means of saving himself, he seemed thoroughly amused, apparently laughing as he sunk, unable to breathe and waiting for the help he needed in order to escape death.

One day, after saving the boy's life yet again, Peter rebuked him, yelling, "Stop doing that! For crying out loud, don't you know you could die?! What are you thinking?!" And then, in a remarkable display of complete and total trust, the boy replied, "I'm not going to die as long as you're here. I know you've got me."

As we get older, most of us don't knowingly jump in the deep end without being able to swim. In fact, it seems the older we get, the more likely we are to stay out of the water altogether, but eventually the tide rolls in. So what if, instead of avoiding situations that may potentially leave us out of our depth and cowering when we find ourselves there anyway, those of us who claim to know the power and love and sovereignty of God Almighty lived with the trust and confidence of that boy? What if, when the diagnosis came in, when our spouse walked out, when our dreams were crushed, when we realized we would never live the life we had always longed for in this world - what if we fell into the arms of our Father in heaven and said, "I'm devastated and helpless and it hurts, but I trust you. I don't understand this and I certainly don't like it, but I know you've got this, and I will praise you in this storm."? What if, instead of getting scared and angry and controlling and crazy, we could all laugh while drowning? What kind of impact do you think that would have... on our marriage, our co-workers, our health, our witness to the world?

When I was in the Middle East in 2007, I met a young Christian woman named Nadia from Mosul, Iraq. At that time, the strongest Muslim terrorist organization in the region was Al-Qaeda, who just six months before had sent an armed militia to Nadia's church in Mosul to threaten their lives. "Close down this church by tomorrow," Al-Qaeda leaders told Nadia and her congregation, "or we will lock every one of you inside and burn it to the ground."

"What did you do," I asked Nadia. She smiled and said, "What do you think? As soon as they left we started celebrating! We were saying to each other, 'Can you imagine? We might see Jesus tomorrow!' All this time we have been living in this sick and broken world, worshiping Jesus and waiting for the day when we can see him face to face. Suddenly, it looked like the day had come. And we got so excited we couldn't contain ourselves. We were laughing and singing and dancing until late in the night, but the terrorists didn't come back, at least not yet."

Talk about humbling! That was a community who knew the One in whom they trusted and lived it out day by day. I imagine they are all with Jesus today, as the Islamic State rose up a few years later and tore through Mosul, slaughtering Christians who had survived the days of Al-Qaeda and destroying many magnificent historical remains of that ancient city. But when I think of Nadia and her friends, I imagine them laughing while drowning, falling into the arms of Jesus as he rescued them into heaven.

As long as our trust is rightly placed in the work of Jesus Christ, and our hope is not in this world but in the life that is to come, we can laugh while drowning too. During a low point in the history of Israel, the prophet Habakkuk wrote,

"Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation."1

How does your verse read? Perhaps it's something like this:

"Though the kids scream and exhaustion overtakes my whole being, the bills pile up and there's no food in the fridge, the medical tests just came back and the prognosis is grim,yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation."

He's got this, and He is good!