Soul Surfer Bethany Hamilton, Arm Eating Sharks, Quinny, and Surfing By Faith Alone

    On a cold day last winter my granddaughter, Quinn (9), watched the inspiring movie Soul Surfer, about the Christian surfer, Bethany Hamilton, from Hawaii who overcame having her arm bitten off by a shark and continued to surf. Quinn was so impressed that she did what children easily do - she simply walked out of the theater and announced that she too was a surfer. She told me and anyone who would listen that she was a surfer. She refused to let the realities that she had no surfboard and had never been surfing interfere with her new identity. Quinn became a surfer by faith alone.

   She then began surfing Ebay looking for a board and found one for about a hundred dollars. She had fifteen dollars so she began confidently surfing family and friends asking for contributions. In a vessel usually empty she asked people to contribute their spare coins to her surfboard fund. As the winter progressed she accumulated and counted and recounted the money until in June there were enough coins to buy the board. When  it arrived she was happy but not at all flummoxed by the troubling fact that she had never ridden a surfboard. Her initial faith prevailed. Quinn was a surfer by faith alone.

   Eventually the day arrived when the self declared surfer, the unridden surfboard, and the ocean met at Chincoteague, Virginia. After a few minutes of instruction by a local surfing instructor, Shane, Quinn caught a wave and popped up on her board. Her family was proud and jubilant (and maybe a little relieved), but she took it all in stride. She'd been a surfer since the middle of last winter when she had first believed .

                               Quinny's First Ride (Sorry for the grainy iPhone photo)

    Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them,  and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:2-3 NKJV)  I pray that the childlike faith Quinn displayed when she became a surfer repeats as she walks out her faith in Christ.

   From the moment we first believed, our simple faith in Christ has been attacked. Spiritual sharks are always hunting.... like a hungry lion looking for something to devour. Jesus said in the explanation to the disciples of the parable of the sower -- But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. (Matthew 13:20,21 NKJV)  I can remember many who began with joy but who have stumbled away from Jesus. I've stumbled off the narrow path too, often when I misplace my childlike faith or attempt to replace it with biblical knowledge. I've let prideful thoughts displace Jesus. Being a Christian isn't nearly as complicated as we are capable of making it.

    I have a friend I meet with when one of us has a problem. We've done this for years. We discuss options, apply scripture, dream up solutions, fantasize about outcomes and eventually (usually about two hours later) we weedle it all down to two words, trust God, and our problem is solved. Neither of us can explain why we don't always begin where we have learned we will eventually end.

    When you and I walk out of the theaters of our imaginations into the realities of our lives maybe we should just recall Quinny, the little girl who became a surfer by faith alone, and declare ourselves children of the Most High, sealed, saved, and secure by faith alone.

    Trust God. Could the Lord have made it any simpler?