Feeling Better: Devotions From Time of GraceNäide

My Life: I feel like I'm drowning

Navy survivors of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 had terrifying tales to tell of being below decks in sinking or capsized ships. Trapped behind bulkheads, air supply dwindling, they watched the water level rise. Some escaped; many hundreds didn't.

Is your personal load of bad news coming all at once? "Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck" (Psalm 69:1). God must be letting it happen for a reason. Let go of your own agenda for a minute and try to imagine God's.

Many of the rescued sailors at Pearl Harbor were freed not by their own efforts--they couldn't put the smallest dent in ship steel. They were freed by divers with underwater cutting torches. They "prayed" for help by banging wrenches on the hull to show where they were.

Sometimes the waters rise in our own lives because we are too proud or stubborn to ask for help, or blow it off when God first sends other people as our "rescue team."

Here is a promise from One who loves you and finds no joy in your misery: "Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him" (Psalm 32:6).