And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

“Neither hope nor despair ultimately comes from our circumstances. The body of water in which we are swimming makes no difference. It’s no easier to float in fifty feet of water than in five, and a person can drown in just a few inches of water. Hope will lift or despair will drag down depending on what we hold in our hearts.” – Nicole Johnson in Irrepressible Hope: Devotions to Anchor Your Soul and Buoy Your Spirit

Walk On The Water by Britt Nicole

You look around and staring back at you
Another wave of doubt
Will it pull you under
You wonder
What if i’m overtaken
What if i never make it
What if no one’s there
Will you hear my prayer?
When you take that first step
Into the unknown
You know that he won’t let you go

(Chorus)So what are you waiting for
What do you have to lose
Your insecurities
They try to hold to you
But you know you’re made for more
So don’t be afraid to move
Your faith is all it takes
And you can walk on the water too

So get out and let your fear fall to the ground
No time to waste, don’t wait
And don’t you turn around, and miss out on
Everything you were made for
Gotta be, I know you’re not sure, more
So you play it safe, you try to run away
If you take that first step
Into the unknown
He won’t let you go

(Chorus)

Step out, even when it’s storming
Step out, even when you’re broken
Step out, even when your heart is telling you,
telling you to give up
Step out, when your hope is stolen
Step out, you can’t see where you’re going
You don’t have to be afraid
So what are waiting, what are you waiting for

(Chorus)

In the movie The Secret Garden, the young boy Colin thinks he’s an invalid. He can’t bear the strong light of day, the clean open air. He believes those things will infect his lungs and snatch his life. He believes he’s destined to be everlastingly bedridden or, in the few struggling moments he spends out of bed, bound lifelong to a wheelchair. He believes that because he’s been told that. He lives a long time this way, kept in that state by a conspiracy of adults.

Kept in a borderland by a god who’s too safe.

But then his orphaned cousin, Mary, comes along and sees through the conspiracy. In what looks like sheer defiance, utter brazenness, hard malice, she tears the shutters and blinds off Colin’s windows. Bright sunlight pours in through the scrim of dust. Colin shrieks. She throws the windows open, and cool, fresh air swirls through the room. Colin howls. She shoos Colin out of bed. Colin yells. She forces him, sullen and whining, into the outdoors. She scolds and coaxes him from his wheelchair. He stands, filled with self-lament, tottering.

But he’s standing. Yes, he’s standing. He takes one lurching step, then another. Soon Colin walks. Then runs. Then skips. Then dances.

Mary seems to callous at first. But she is the one who cares most deeply for him. She cares enough to woo Colin to the secret garden; she loves him enough to bring him into wholeness. She knew all along that his bones were sturdy, his lungs deep, his muscles supple and strong. She knew all along he was made for life to the full.

That’s a picture of the life Christ calls us into. Christ finds us in our hovel of self-pity, our imagined invalidism, our dreary room on borderland. He seems at first so gruff, stripping off the shutters, throwing open the windows, rousing us from bed, pushing us out to the garden, commanding that we walk. Come, follow Me.

But all along it’s a gift. He does this, not because we must. It’s because we can. The musty shadows of the sick room, the pale withered limbs-that’s just the devil’s conspiracy, the lie we’ve been told. It takes a God who’s not safe, but who’s good, to tell us otherwise.

Come, follow Me.

Why would you go back to the sickroom?

Your God Is Too Safe – Mark Buchanan