Bible Text: Psalm 46:1-3 | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. Psalm 46:1-3

Have you ever been on a white water rafting trip? Or should I call it an experience?   I remember my first trip. (Come to think of it, it’s my last trip as well). I’d been around waters ever since I was a little kid, and when they gave me that life jacket and cinched it about as tight as the saddle on a horse, I thought, “I don’t need this thing, and besides, we were putting the raft into water which was placid and calm. “We don’t need that bucket,” I thought, nor do I need the helmet and the steely look and inspection of the agent as though we were suiting up to compete in the Olympics.

The sign, “Is your life insurance current?” should have tipped me off, but it didn’t. In a few minutes, the water started flowing more rapidly. “Great stuff!” I thought, and then after a few curves, the current became swifter. Glancing up we could see the raft in front of us wafting about like a potato chip in the wind. That’s what they call “white water,” I thought, realizing we were headed into that stuff. William Boswell once wrote that when a man is facing the gallows, his thinking gets focused. For the first time, I understood, and then before I had time to think, we hit the rapids.

The helmsman, who, thank God, knew what he was doing was yelling for us to paddle left, then right, then hard left, and then whoosh! I was suddenly thrown into the air about like a pilot who ejects from his plane.   I found myself in the water, fighting for breath, trying to remember to get my feet pointed downstream.   Yes, I made it, and I’ve got a few great pictures to prove that I was really there, but I’ll tell you one thing for sure, you’ll never, ever forget the experience.

It doesn’t matter that the rapids are rated only 3.5 or 2.37 or what—not very great compared to the high end of the scale. You don’t care that real white water rafters would laugh at your discomfort. When you’ve been thrown out of the boat and you are gasping for breath, what others think doesn’t matter. Your concern is survival, not how your hair looks in the picture that the guy snaps on the rock over there.

The problem with white water rafting and life itself is that you don’t know where the rocks are and what’s around the corner, and there’s no going back for another run at the rapids. When you come off loser and find yourself gasping for breath, you want help and you want it now.

Question: Have you ever found yourself in a pretty desperate situation, the place where you don’t want to be, whether it is on the wrong end of a lawsuit, the receiving end of slander or harsh words, or the loser in an argument with the one you love more than anything else? It’s a quiet waiting room when the doctor says, “We’ve done our best but the outlook isn’t very good.”

When life turns into a white water experience and you get tossed out of the boat, where do you go? To whom do you turn? What do you hold on to? Take time, friend, to turn to Psalm 46 and read what the psalmist did when he faced the white waters of life. Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble,” he wrote, adding, “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging” (Psalm 46:1-3).   When God is your refuge, the intensity of the white waters or the storm isn’t all that important. Think about it.

Resource reading: Psalm 44