Devotionals

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Over Memorial Day weekend I joined six crazy fathers and their six beautiful daughters on an adventurous white-water rafting trip in West Virginia. It was great fun. We loved every aspect of the trip from the travel to the camping. There was a big fuzzy black bear in our campground and lots of other exciting events. The big adventure was the river float on the New River. As you raft the New River you must be willing to swim from time to time. If you don’t want an adventure and you do not like to swim in rushing water- DON"T GO! That is why I left my wife at home.

We meet our guide, an older river guide, with the appearance of special force soldier. He was nicknamed T.J. I had a young guide called possum once on this very same river. Possum was a rather weird trip, not the river, the guide. So I thought an older guide with a normal nickname was a bonus. T.J. told us that he had 12 years of guiding experience. I was very happy to get an old river specialist. I immediately pictured a very exciting but safe float on this spectacular river.

We flipped the twelve man white water raft on the very first rapids. That was o.k. but it seemed to set a day-long pattern. On every major section we seemed to go in wildly spinning or blindly backwards. On a class five rapids our raft was the only one that went were river guides told everyone to stay away from. (Or you might die). Our fearless river guide even seemed to panic and yell obscene words of fear during this moment of dread. That was a little unnerving for his soaked river trustees. On a spot where we were suppose to surf on a standing wave we were the only raft sucked completely into the spinning and air-sucking waves. We all drank a lot of muddy river water. We wanted adventure but this was more adventure then we all desired.

At the meeting where we watched the video of our very wet trip, we learned that our seasoned guide had guided river adventures for 12 years but had been out of the guide business for the last eight years. We were T.J’s first weekend river trip back from retirement. We were really going down the river with a carpenter from North Carolina. Suddenly all our watery problems had an answer. We had rafted with a rusty, out of practice, stale river guide. He had lost the touch of the river during his eight years of pounding nails. That made him a little dangerous! We were his soaked and frustrated river victims.

A lot of Christians are like this musty guide. They don’t have any fresh work of God in their lives. They have not studied the Bible or been in the presence of God in a long time. They become Christians with memories of walking with God but no fresh work of God in our lives. So we become very dangerous. We may seem like we know God and walk with God. However, if we are having issues in our lives these troubles could be fatal. For the reason that we don’t have any fresh work of God in our lives. We are out of touch in a big way and have become very dangerous. So don’t neglect your time with God! You need a fresh touch every day or you life may take a soggy spin.

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