By Jeanette Leong
Sometimes it’s when we come to the end of ourselves that we find God there. In that transient moment when our life has been displaced. When the axis of our universe is off by one degree.
And then you realize it’s God’s realignment of your broken life. And suddenly everything becomes clear.
This happened for me during a recent scuba diving trip off the coast of Manado; a well-known dive destination with crystal clear waters. Below the surface, it’s literally an underwater metropolis and I got to see many new sea creatures that I had never seen before like the beautiful but deadly blue-ring octopus. But diving is generally a high-risk activity, and even with 70 dives clocked and Rescue Diver certification, and despite observing all the safety protocols, accidents can still happen.
(Photo by Kok XinYu, my sister-in-law whom I went on the dive trip with)
We were on our morning dive and it was time to surface. The two companions I was with had already surfaced, while I needed an extra minute before coming up. If you know the dive protocols, you would know from the 5 metre safety stop, to look up and check that the area is clear before raising your hand to commence surfacing. As I started my ascent, a thought suddenly came to mind, “Wait. There could be a boat.” I stopped and looked around, carefully inspecting the surface of the water. It was very clear and the sunlight was streaming through. My two companions were just a few meters away bobbing on the surface. I waited and listened. No sound of any boat engine. So I started to ascend again. 4m to the surface. Again the words came to me, “Wait. There could be a boat.” I stopped to look around again in all directions. No sight or sound of any danger. My two friends, still bobbing away. 3m to the surface. As I started to ascend a third time the words came again, “There could be a boat.. Wait..” One more scan of the surface. All clear. Up we go.
(Jeanette and Xin Yu)
I was barely 1m from breaking the surface when suddenly a long rectangular shadow came rushing across over me. I flinched and was trying to make sense of things when it dawned on me that a boat had just rushed over my head, and I would barely have a few seconds before the engine blades would reach me and slice through my flesh. I barreled back down as fast as I could, with no time to equalize the pressure in my ears.
If you’re reading this it means I survived.
Slightly disoriented from the unequalized pressure in my ears. Very shaken from the event. It was another dive boat that was picking up their own group of divers from a different resort. Reckless. Negligent. Scot-free. But all I could think about was how thankful I was to be alive.
When I got back to my room I lay sprawled on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. Time seemed to stand still as I replayed the scenario in my mind. In my heart I knew it was the Holy Spirit that had prompted me, saved me. How close I had been to death. A moment sooner and the boat would have smashed into my head. The engine blades would have sliced through my flesh. I wouldn’t be here. I should be dead. Why would God save me? Is my life really worth saving? Lord, do I deserve to live? You literally just saved my life.
It was at that moment that I felt God say to me, “It is more important that I died for your sins, [than that I saved your life from the boat]”.
Putting it all together, it’s hard to describe in words how much this floored me. To fully grasp what this truly means. Reading about how He died for our sins, hearing about it, learning about it theoretically in Sunday school has never made quite the impact that it has now. And then you start to think about how to live from this moment onwards, knowing that you were so graciously spared death. As my friend so aptly put it, “It’s incredible, right? That feeling that you’ve got a second stab at this thing called life.”
When I partake of Holy Communion these days, the words “My body broken for you” resonate so much more as I consider how my own body would have been broken that day, and yet His was broken in place of mine.
As I spent the weeks after turning all this in my heart, I came across Luke 16:26 (NASB, 1977) that reads,
“… there is a great chasm fixed, in order that those who wish to come over from here to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.”
Somehow the reading of this phrase “great chasm” shook me to my core. I came to a fresh understanding that it is only by His death on the cross that we are pardoned from eternal death and damnation. And the experience of having been so close to death myself can only pale in comparison to the reality that His body was broken in place of mine.
Would you be afraid to come to the end of yourself? Don’t be. Live for His glory.
(Seng Leong, Jeanette, Jeremy, Joshua)