My two youngest sons were recently home on a school break. They decided to kayak down a small river near our home. It was a pleasant day, warm for the winter month. It sounded like a great idea.

They gathered their kayaks and other stuff necessary for young men who want to kayak: snacks, bottled water, and a Bluetooth speaker for tunes. My youngest took his digital camera.

I drove with them to the drop off spot. The afternoon was quickly passing and they were beginning their trip a little later than anticipated. Still, they had made this trip numerous times; they had experience. They had a cell phone to keep me updated. I would see them in a couple of hours.  They got into their kayaks and I went home to bake cookies for their return.

Two hours passed; my husband got home from work. I told him about the kayak trip. He looked concerned.  He reminded me that it had rained the previous night and the river was up. I had forgotten about the rain, and also about the effects that hurricane Michael had on our area in recent months, lots of rainfall, lots of downed trees.

The daylight faded into twilight with no word from our sons. We tried calling them. No answer. My husband decided to wait for them at the landing spot. An hour later, the phone rang. An unfamiliar voice had news about our sons. He and his hunting buddies had found them calling for help across the river. The hunters helped our boys find their way out of the forest, a five-hour hike.

Unbeknownst to me, as I baked cookies, our sons had both capsized in the fast current of the river as they had approached a downed tree 20 minutes into their trip. My youngest had tried to hold on to his kayak. His big brother wisely counseled him to give it up. Both boys made it safely to the bank. Thick underbrush cut their bodies as they tediously hiked. Thanks to the hunters, they made it through the woods and back to the road.

Six hours after leaving home, our boys walked through our back door. Both kayaks were lost. My youngest lost his phone, his camera and that Bluetooth speaker. They were scratched, worn and cold.

It alarmed me to think that while my sons faced peril, I was happily baking cookies in my kitchen. I did not know to plead with God for their safety. I didn’t realize they were in need of rescue.  But, my Heavenly Father did. He is the Heavenly Father of my sons as well. They prayed for their own safety and prayed to find their way home. And that Heavenly Father was working on their behalf. He is always working; Jesus told us so in John 5:17:“My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too am working.”
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God is always at work even when we have no idea that He is working. He is working in impossible situations. He is working in homes, in hearts, next door and across oceans. God is a big God and He is always at work. He is worthy of our complete trust.

While I was in Colorado a couple of weeks ago during my quiet time I read Isaiah 41:13 “For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.” I just got stuck on this verse and the phrase “takes hold of your right hand”. I wondered, “Why does it say right hand, why is it so specific?” Then I wondered,  “What the percentage of the world is left handed?” It turns out only that 10-12% of the people in the world are left handed. So for most people who read this, the right hand is their strong hand. So, if someone takes hold of your strong hand that leaves you with your weak hand to work with.
 
Walking anywhere in Colorado was an adventure, I was continually coming across an ice patch and if I wasn’t paying attention and hit the ice just right I would get a quick heart dropping slide that made me feel I was about to land on my rump. (I had had an unfortunate incident with falling off a shuttle while I was there and I just didn’t want to find myself on the ground again.) So my husband Sean and I held hands while we walked, I admit it wasn’t about romance it was about survival.
 
Sean is a firefighter, his job is to protect people from danger and 99% of the time I trust his ability to protect me. But he’s lived in Florida for 40 years, and I’ve witnessed his ice walking ability, it is only slightly better than mine. Because of this, I just couldn’t walk with him holding my right hand because that left me to use my weak side to protect myself if we started to slip.
 
This reminds me of Isaiah 41:13, we all have a “strong side” these are the gifts and abilities God has given us that we feel confident in. But that is not where He wants us to stay. The Lord “takes us by the right hand” because he doesn’t want us to trust in our abilities. . Rather He wants us to step out in our weakness. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 the Lord says, “My power is made perfect in your weakness”. It is in this weakness we learn to trust and depend on the Lord for so much more than only doing the things we have confidence we can do ourselves.
 
When we are too confident in ourselves this leads to pride, thinking we can do it all on our own.  2 Corinthians 4:7 says  “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”  He want us to step out in our weakness because then His power is magnified, we show the world how amazingly powerful, faithful and trustworthy He is.
 
I love the last part of Isaiah 41:13 “Do not fear, I will help you”. That is a promise I want to cling to when I want to shrink back into the safe place of my abilities instead of stepping out in my weakness and magnifying “God’s all-surpassing power”.