God’s Arm is Never Too Short to Rescue
Hi friends, did you know I have been writing devotions for over 25 years! So I’m changing it up a bit. Starting April, 2026, my devotions will release on the first and third Tuesdays of every month, rather than weekly. Thank you for sharing them with your friends and encouraging them to sign up! It means the world to me! And now for this week’s encouragement…
The current was swift and fierce. I could feel my body being swept away like a hollow reed.
I was just a wisp of a girl—a six-year-old, forty-pound monkey with gangly arms and legs who vowed she could do anything her eleven-year-old mischievous brother, Stewart, could do. Standing on the sole-blistering sand of Bogue Inlet, N.C., I watched as my brother and his friend plunged into the briny waters at the end of the island where the Atlantic Ocean merged with the Intracoastal Waterway.
The boys had one goal: swim across the water to a sandbar some one hundred feet away.
This was the spot at the end of the island where waves gave way to calm, salt water gave way to fresh, and sand gave way to soil. What looked like tranquil water on the surface was, in reality, a strong undercurrent that sucked the ocean away from its home. Like a lovesick puppy mourning its master’s absence, I watched as the boys dove into the water and swam away from shore.
“I want to go too!” I called out after them.
“You’re just a kid!” Stewart yelled back. “You stay there! You can’t come!”
“It’s not fair,” I stormed. “He gets to do everything!”
“You stay here with us,” my dad instructed. “You’re too little. It’s not safe.”
My dad’s words only made me more determined to prove them all wrong. “If he can do it, I can do it,” I mumbled. “I always get left behind.”
When my dad turned his back to talk to a friend, I saw my chance and dove into the water. My thin limbs were no match for the sucking force of the undertow and the pull of the current. Very quickly, my lithe body was swept away with the ocean’s salt, sand, and silt into the fresh water.
My salty tears mixed with the briny water, and my small cries for help went unheard. The strong ropes of the current continued to pull me away from my family as they grew smaller in the distance.
Dad turned from his conversation to see the boys had almost reached their mark. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed my small splashes far to his right.
Propelled by panic, Dad dove into the water and cut through the menacing current. Like a fisherman’s hook, he reached out, grabbed my flailing body, and reeled me to his side. With one arm, he fought the current; with the other, he held me tight. We finally made it to shore. My dad had rescued me.
My dad wasn’t a perfect man. He certainly made his share of mistakes. But on that day, he represented a good good Father to me.
Have you ever been in a similar situation? Perhaps you’ve jumped into deep waters—into strong currents that appeared calmly benign on the surface but hid an undertow of trouble.
Perhaps you envied others who were headed in a certain direction and felt you were missing all the fun. “Don’t go there,” your Heavenly Father warns. “It’s not safe.”
“But why do they get to have all the fun?” you whine. “I always get left behind.”
Then, when you think God isn’t looking, in you jump. Before you know it, you’re being swept away in the current of poor choices, sucked down by the undertow of self-centeredness, and pulled farther and farther away as your Father grows strangely small.
When we ignore our Father’s warnings, we forfeit the safety of His shore and plunge into the ocean of harm’s way—the undertow of wrong choices, the rising tide of moral danger. Perhaps that’s where you are right now. If so, there is hope. You only have to call out to your Heavenly Father for help, and He will pull you safely to shore.
David cried out, “Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me” (Psalm 31:2). “Reach down your hand from on high; deliver me and rescue me from the mighty waters…” (Psalm 144:7).
As God told Moses at the burning bush, He sees, He hears, He is concerned, and He rescues (Exodus 3:7–8).
“But Sharon,” you might say, “you don’t know how far I’ve fallen. You don’t know what a mess I’ve made of my life.” You’re right. I don’t. But I do know how far I’ve fallen and how badly I’ve messed up. And I also know this: there is no place you can go where His arm is too short to reach down and rescue you.
No matter what your relationship with your earthly father has been, you have a Heavenly Father who sees you, hears you, is concerned about you, and is ready to rescue you.
If you believe that today for yourself or for someone you love, leave a comment and say “amen.”
Dear Heavenly Father, I am so glad that Your arm is never too short to save me—to pull me out of the difficult places of life. Forgive me for ignoring the Holy Spirit’s warnings and jumping into treacherous waters I should have avoided. Give me the strength to walk away when I feel that check in my spirit that says, “Don’t go there.” I love You, Lord, and thank You for being my Rescuer, my Rock, and my Redeemer. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Digging Deeper
Today, you might be praying for someone you love. A young child, an adult child, a husband, a friend. When we don’t know what to pray, we can pray the Word of God. And when we pray the Word of God, we pray the will of God. Click here to discover the many prayer resources on my website. You might find just what you need to become the prayer warrior you’ve always wanted to be.
