worshippers of God, rescuers of men

This another phrase that we use in the Vineyard. I have some favourite places. One of them is on the west coast of France. I am a beach type of person. I don’t like crowded, sunbed filled Mediterranean style beaches but the wild ones with crashing waves, sand dunes, hot sunshine and a warming breeze. This is one of those places that surfers like to be. If I had been brought up in Hawaii or California or some such place I think I would have been a surfer. Unfortunately there is not much to tempt me to don the wetsuit along the Norfolk coastline! So now, when I get the chance I watch them.

Back on the west coast the beach is watched over by the lifeguards (les sauveteur pompiers). This doesn’t seem to be a light duty kind of watch, but an intensive gaze out to sea looking for trouble due to the strong undercurrents and powerful waves. At one place I have visited they even have a winch so the guards can swim out and then be towed in such is the strength of the sea. At the end of the season they show how many lives have been saved, usually a three figure number – and no deaths! Many a time, however, we have seen the helicopter make its emergency landing on the strand.

Overseeing all this is the lighthouse warning passing ships not to come too close to the sandspit which stretches two to three miles along the coast near to the Garonne Estuary and its busy shipping channels down to Bordeaux. To be good rescuers of men the lighthouse and the lifeguards need to have a solid and fixed base on the ground. From this position rescue attempts have more chance of success. Even the helicopter doesn’t have to land on the beach but has its own helipad behind the nearest dune.

I have discovered that to have a solid foundation in life is paramount and I have found that by worshipping God, by lifting up His name and by singing His praises this keeps me grounded and firm. I worship Him for who He is as well as for what he has done joining in with David who wrote in Psalm 40 v1-3, ‘I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.’

From this place we reach out our hands in the name of Jesus and seek to rescue others from the pit that sin, guilt, pain, unforgiveness and abuse can put us. Then others too will come to worship God for all He is and for all He has done.