Related commentaries – Confidence

The Kings Defeated by the Israelites – Joshua 12:1 – 12:24

Drowning son was confident in his daddy

I heard a story recently which illustrates the idea of a resting heart in the previous chapter. An American missionary couple and their family were home on furlough, and spending their vacation at a cabin near a lake. They had three children, ages twelve, seven and four. One day the four-year-old slipped away from his brother and sister, went out on the dock to play, and fell into the lake. He didn’t know how to swim and he wasn’t wearing a life jacket. The screams of the two older children alerted the father to the danger. He ran to the dock and the kids pointed to where their brother had fallen in.

The father dove into the lake. He went all the way to the bottom and felt around frantically for his little boy. Finally, he ran out of air, came to the top, took another huge gulp of air, and went down again, searching for his son. On his way down a third time he felt his little boy’s leg. He turned and found his four-year-old son with his arms and legs wrapped tightly around one of the pilings, about three feet below the water. The father pried him loose, carried him onto the lawn, and they both caught their breath. After about thirty minutes, when things had calmed down and were restored to normal, the father asked, “Son, what were you doing down there, hanging on to that piling?” The little boy answered, “I was confident that my daddy would rescue me.” (Lou Nicholes, Conquest of the Promised Land, 2004).