I Got You
I had been struggling with some difficult mental and physical issues and was pretty desperate.
I was extremely anxious and depressed. One day I decided to skate at the Newport/Balboa peninsula. This is an area of beach I have skated since my college days in the ’90s.
At the start of the path, on 36th Street, is a bench. After I skate, I like to sit quietly and look out at the ocean. It brings me peace, and sometimes a word from GOD.
It started with “I got you”. Pretty simple, but it is exactly what I needed to hear. That started me on the path to healing and more encounters.
My mind had been spinning out of control. I was fixated on death and dying. What was going to happen? I could not shut off my brain.
Those words “I got you” were powerful. I needed to stop worrying and trying to figure everything out. All I needed to know is that GOD is with me and he is taking care of the details.
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its foundations set, or who laid its cornerstone, while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of GOD shouted for joy?”
Shepherd’s Note
Everything in this series grows out of four small words heard at the water's edge: I got you. They are not an explanation of the storm or a promise that the waves will never rise; they are something better, the assurance of being held by the One the waves obey. A child in his father's arms does not need the sea explained to him. He needs the arms, and he has them. That is the ground these encounters stand on, again and again: not that we finally got hold of GOD, but that He has hold of us, and His grip does not depend on ours.
About the Shepherd’s Notes
Some of the posts in this series close with a short section labeled Shepherd's Note. Those notes were prepared with a devotional tool that takes the Scripture and the idea in the post and reflects on them in the tradition of teachers I have learned from for years. Among them are Francis Schaeffer, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, John Stott, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Dallas Willard, along with others whose work has shaped my faith. I reviewed each note before it was added. The encounter at the beach is mine. The Shepherd's Note is a companion to it, offered to help you stay with the word a little longer.