The children loved Zip, their Collie dog friend. But sometimes he was a nuisance! He had to go everywhere they went, for he seemed to feel it was his job to take care of them all.
Especially when they were in swimming he was a pest. Again and again they would chase him out of the water, for he wanted to catch their bathing suits in his teeth and tug them toward the shore. From the shore he would watch their play in the water with a worried dog look in his eyes!
One day while they were swimming, Joan found a sun-dried log that floated like a cork. She could swim a little and a good log was certainly more fun than an inner tube. She paddled with her hands and feet and soon was out beyond the rest of the children who were in swimming. It made her feel brave to be out where the water was deep, and out there she could have her log all to herself!
After a while it did not seem so much fun to be alone. The others seemed to be having fun playing a game of water tag together. So Joan rolled off her log and began to swim toward the shore. She dog-paddled until she was tired and it seemed that she must surely be in far enough to touch the bottom with her feet. She stopped kicking, and let her feet go down.
Blub-b-blub! Oh! Oh! Where was the bottom? There was NOTHING to stand on! Not just her feet had gone down but her head was far under, too. She splashed hard with her arms and tried to kick with her feet. Slowly her head came up out of the water, but just long enough for one good breath of air! Down she went again! She splashed hard again, but it seemed she had forgotten how to swim.
Up and down she churned in the water until she was so tired. Down, down, down! How could it be so deep? Joan had never been so frightened in her life. Was she drowning? With eyes wide open she saw the big bubbles churning in the water around her.
She was coming up again, slowly. What was that? Something reddish brown in the water beside her. Could it be?—it was—Zip’s tail!
Joan reached out, and held on with all of the strength she had left. Zip seemed to understand. Straight to the shore he swam, Joan clinging to his tail.
Joan really loved Zip after that, for she knew he had saved her life. She never would forget the awful feeling of reaching for the bottom of the lake with her feet and finding NOTHING to stand on!
Was that a little bit the way people would feel who would someday stand before God to be judged of their sins? Joan could say, “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God” (Ps. 40:2-3).
Joan had learned when she was just a little girl that she was a sinner and could not save herself. She had read, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5: 24).
Reaching out by faith, she had taken hold of God’s promise just as simply as she had taken hold of Zip’s tail, and the Lord had “rescued” her! Joan was saved, and God’s Word told her that her feet were safely upon the Rock, Christ Jesus.
Will you someday have to face God with nothing—NOTHING —to stand on? Excuses, good works, friends—all will fail in that day. Reach out by faith today, and take the Lord Jesus as your Savior. Then you, too, can sing, “I’m on the Rock, hallelujah!”