When I was about a year old and my sister was two, my parents deposited both of us in an old truck tire on a beach of the Bering Sea. Then, they went away to search for the glass balls that came off Japanese fish nets and floated up to the Arctic on the strong winds.

We were visiting my grandmother, who was Matron of the Nome jail and very busy with civic affairs in small-town Alaska, USA. Her wind-battered, old wooden house and its boardwalk were near the beach of this two-million-kilometre-wide ocean.

I lay back and squalled as I had been doing since birth, due to a milk allergy that had not been caught. My sister managed to climb out of the tire, trying to follow my parents, whom she could see far down the curve of the cove where we had been deposited. But the wind caught her first. As she made her first wobbly step, the wind filled her sealskin parka, which ballooned out around her like a sail, pushing her toward the frigid sea.

Then, she began screaming for help in her baby voice, competing with the shrieking of the gulls and the crashing of the icy waves on that distant, isolated, rocky beach. My parents heard her through all of the noise and rushed back to save her before she drowned in that wind-blown sea.

“I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens.” (Psalm 77:1 MSG)

Just as my parents responded immediately to my sister’s cries, clearly hearing her voice above all the crashing of the waves and the shrieks of the gulls, when we cry out to God, He also responds immediately. We tend to recognize only “Yes” as a response, but sometimes He answers “No”, “Wait”, or “I’ve got a better idea.” Wherever we are, whether safe at home or in imminent danger in an unknown locale, God is there, too, and He is listening for our cries. Someone said, “Trying to pray is praying.”

Our connection to God gets stronger and deeper as we walk with Him. As we read Scripture, we increase our understanding and become the persons He created to be.

“God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love Him…. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing — nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable — absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love.” (Romans 8:29,38-39 MSG)

Are you experiencing the power and fullness of God’s love for you? Do you have a daily conversation with the God Who watches over you and has a plan for your life far beyond any you could imagine? Isn’t it time to let go of your plan and step out on His?

Prayer: Dear Father God, how grateful we are as we follow where You direct our footsteps. Thank You for being always with us, to call on, to cry for help, and to be heard! Bring us back to Yourself when we stray and grow us in Your grace today. In the name of Your Son, we pray. Amen.

Copyright © 2022, by Rose DeShaw <rise370@gmail.com>, first published on the PresbyCan Daily Devotional presbycan.ca .
Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Reprinted from PresbyCan with author’s permission