Under the Boat

I made a new friend this weekend!  His name is Dr. Todd Wilson, pastor of Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, IL.  He was a guest speaker at The Chapel, where I heard him on Sunday.  Well, truth be told, I never actually met him.  But his words were so compelling and “heart-brought” that I feel he understands me as a friend.  So, Dr. Wilson (can I call you Todd?), if it’s okay with you, I’d like to think of you as my friend for now.

Todd spoke about the cries of an adopted and beloved child of God from Romans 8.  Todd and his wife recently adopted twin boys from Ethiopia, making the sermon extra poignant.  But there were two climaxes in the message for me. 

First, he helped make sense of the word Abba in Romans 8.  He pointed out the context often used around Abba in Scripture.  The word Abba, though it is a term of endearment that a child can use for his or her dad, is used in contexts of crisis.  Jesus called God Abba in Mark 14, right before he went to the cross.  And in Romans 8, the term Abba is used for Christians in crisis, who are overwhelmed with hardship.  Todd said, “Abba, Father, is the cry of hope in the midst of hardship.”  That’s brilliant. 

We cry “Abba” when God does not feel like a true Abba, when we cannot see his face or feel his grace—yet we cry anyway.  We cry in faith that he is still there, that he still cares, and that he is completely aware.  Abba is a paradoxical address, for it encapsulates the sincerity of our faith in a loving Father when that faith is being tested.  Abba refuses to let hardship have the last word.

The second climax for me was an illustration that Todd gave about a boat.  He and his family were out on a lake boat one day.  Todd asked his seven year-old daughter if she’d be willing to swim with him under the boat.  Wisely, she flat out refused; but eventually, after much prodding, he talked her into it.  He instructed her to grab hold of his body and not let go until they surfaced on the other side of the boat.  Though she was scared, she held her breath, grabbed hold of her Abba, I mean dad, and went with him under the water, under the boat.  Soon they surfaced on the other side.

God asks his adopted children to go with him under the boat.  There is another side of faith that God wants us to experience.  There is another place that God may be leading you to, on the other side of what’s safe.  Like the daughter, you and I are on the edge of something breathtaking.  We’re treading water on the safe side, when, suddenly, our Abba wants us to go on an adventure with him.  We have never gone under the boat before, nor do we want to. 

But we will not be alone.  Abba will swim with us—actually, he will swim for us, and we need only to hold on to him. 

God often calls us out of our comfort and certainty in order to embark on something bigger.  He calls us to a place where holding on to him is the only sensible option.  It’s dark and cold and we cannot see his face, but we feel the force of his Spirit pulling us through, verifying to our hearts that Abba is with us.  Then when we surface on the other side, we’ll never regret having followed him down, for we discovered that we were capable of so much more than we ever imagined, and so was he.

Todd, my friend, thank you for speaking to our hearts this weekend, for helping me to make sense of my own journey under the boat.

© 2010 by Samuel Kee