Staying afloat with prayer
Published: September 28, 2006
Three Florida Gulf Coast residents who were diving 25 miles offshore surfaced to find their boat had drifted two miles away from them. They thought they were doomed.
John Gerhardt, a father of two and a chaplain at a local hospital, says he improvised his diving gear into a flotation device and began to pray.
Speaking to a religious radio station on Tuesday, Gerhardt says he began to speak the words he remembered from Isaiah 40, even adding his own prayer for strength to the verses. Isaiah 40 says, “The Lord gives strength to those who are weary. Even young people get tired, then stumble and fall. But those who trust the Lord will find new strength. They will be strong like eagles soaring upward on wings. They will walk and run without getting tired.”
Gerhardt said he added, “They shall swim and not get weary,” to his recitation of the Bible passage as he fought to stay afloat. Gerhardt was bleeding from his arms chafing on the equipment. Soon, fins began to pop up in the water near the men. The men didn’t know if the fins were from dolphins or sharks. Gerhardt spotted their boat two miles away and began to swim toward it, praying as he swam. Two hours later, an exhausted Gerhardt miraculously reached the boat. He radioed the Coast Guard and then called his own wife and asked her to pray. The three divers were soon rescued by the Coast Guard.
Phillip Brooks said: “Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be the miracle.”
Martin Luther King said: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.”
When push came to shove, John Gerhardt’s true religion came to light. He refused to give in to circumstances and hopelessness. He turned to the Bible passages that he’d already hidden in his heart. He prayed to his God for strength to meet the challenge.
Let’s try to meet our challenges in this same faithful way. Let’s pray that God will help us “swim and not get weary.”
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